Flowers in the Dirt
by QTXAdsy
Summary: On a mission from their guild, a Gnome begins to find a certain interest in a fellow Night elf huntress. But he'll have to put back these thoughts to help on their mission with the others, or will he? GnomexNelf. Some language and violence included.
1. Come Together

**Hmm, it's been a while now, hasn't it? Well I like to say Happy New Year to everyone out there, and what better to start off the new year than a new WoW fanfic! I've always wondered how a Gnome and Night elf story might be like, but I really couldn't think where to start. Thankfully, fellow WoW user and fanfic writer, Bleechkyuubi-chan (Sorry, is that how you spell your username?), gave me this idea as she seems to find Gnome Death Knights rather cute, trust me to have one in our guild! But I'd like thank her a lot for planting the seed in my head to start of this story. I will try and update it as much as possible, but you'll need to review if you want more. So let's start off this little story then!**

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**Part 1**

**Come Together**

Stormwind was busy as always, even if it was the end of Winter's Veil and the start of a new year. Here and there that cold night, people were going about their own businesses such as busy days at the auction house, small fights outside bars (which was typical at half past eleven at night) and the many races of people around the city talking among each other about a pending war with the Horde. Though a group of three were not thinking about either of this.

A Dwarf warrior was leading the small group on his netherwing drake heading towards their guild master's house in the Dwarven District. Flying behind him was a rather scruffy Gnome Death Knight on his winged Ebon blade steed alongside a rather rough, muddy looking Dwarf hunter on his Turbo-Charged flying machine. The reason they were heading off to where they were going was that they had been given a special assignment from their guild. The only thing was that none of them knew what it was going to be, yes, they did have their doubts about their assignment, but the three friends had always managed to triumph against anything that stood in their way (apart from a certain large dragon!)

The three friends touched down just outside of the house, almost crushing a young gnome rogue under the netherwing drake's large claws. The small group put away their precious flying mounts behind the guild's building, where other mounts of all shapes and sizes where stabled. There the three of them were reunited with their main ground based mounts. The Death Knight's red Turbostrider, the warrior's Nightsaber and the hunter's armoured brown bear. After giving their flying mounts a small goodbye, they turn their attention to the Guild builder, which was their guild master's house.

You would of wonder why the guild hadn't thought of using a hall or something, but they were an up and coming guild so they had to start from somewhere. They quickly brushed off themselves before Kogan knocked on the door.

"You think they'll remember we're coming?" asked the hunter.

"Of course they will, Goilir," replied the Dwarven warrior, Kogan. "They have been expecting us for this day specially."

The Death Knight of the group groaned at Kogan's attitude. Mind you, he didn't mind the warrior's attitude most of the time; it was just that Kogan had been raving on for about week about this, as it would be his first time as a leader of guild assignment.

After a few seconds of waiting, a Paladin human woman opened the door ushering them in.

"Quickly," the female Paladin welcomed them. "The master has been expecting you, he's upstairs." Downstairs had a few members chatting to each other about various things, but gave their small welcomes to the small gang. The three of them quickly brushed themselves off before heading upstairs. After a quick rush up the stairs, the group were now outside their guild master's door. Kogan once again knocked on the door again, it did feel a bit tense waiting outside the room but then they heard a voice for them to come in.

Soon enough after opening the door, they came face-to-face with their guild master, who was sitting the desk, Rilath. Rilath was all you expected from a guild master, noble looking, had impressive armour that was the envy of everyone else but above all had all the patience in the world, no wonder the human warrior was recently chosen as their new guild leader.

Kogan, Jirus and Goilir stood to attention once they were close to Rilath's desk. "Crusader Kogan reporting for duty!" The Dwarf warrior saluted to Rilath.

"At ease men," the human replied to them.

"Excuse sir," Goilir then asked. "But wasn't the others suppose to be here?"

"Of course, hunter," Rilath replied. "Though unfortunately they've been called away to help out on a raid with our sister guild, they do give their good lucks to you three though."

"So then," Jirus began casually crossing his arms. "What's the task you have lined up for us then?"

The warrior guild master brought out from a draw from the desk he was sitting at a large map of Ashenvale with crosses dotted about on the map with a large one near the entrance of Felwood. The two Dwarfs and Gnome looked at the map for a few seconds before looking up at their guild master. "There you have it," Rilath spoke. "Ashenvale."

Kogan looked back at the map before looking back at Rilath. "What seems to be the problem then?" Asked the Dwarven warrior.

"Since the Cataclysm happened," Rilath started. "The Horde has begun a raid into the land defeating many Night Elf forces pushing them back and in the process capturing many of their own defences." The group looked at each other with slight worried looking expressions. "Ashenvale has always been in the caring hands of the Night Elves for thousands of years, it would be a tragic event for them if they were to loose the land to the Horde."

They all remained silent after that. None of them spoke for about ten seconds until Jirus broke the silence. "Where do we come into it then?" The Death Knight asked. Rilath gave them a small smile before continuing what he was saying.

"Well all of us guild leaders in the Alliance have been given instructions from King Varian." The others looked at him impressed by what he had said. "He has asked us to send various members from other guilds to head out and investigate Horde activities in many areas or if necessary engage conflict with them."

Rilath then pointed out at the various crosses on the map that the group had noticed earlier. "We believe they have captured most parts of the eastern side of Ashenvale with something big going on near the entrance to Felwood, all you need to do is see what they are up to and try and slow down their movements until the Night Elves gather more forces to combat the Horde. If you do this then each of you will receive five thousand gold each, very sought after reward if you ask me."

The small group then huddled round discussing about the task that had been sent before them, the thought of the large amount of gold they would be their driving force. In many ways, only doing this for the money. They seem to talk for about a minute until they looked back at the guild leader.

"We will take it," Kogan answered. "But I can't understand why Varian would want some guys like us to take this on when he could use a part of the Alliance army to take this on."

Rilath leaned over to them a bit motioning them to come forward a bit. "Well the thing is that Varian wants to save much of the Alliance army as possible in case a war with the Horde is to break out soon." Kogan, Jirus and Goilir muttered to each other about it for a bit. Jirus looked back at the map of Ashenvale and let a small sigh.

"Not sure if the three of us could do this by ourselves," Jirus spoke softly. "It's pretty much a 'not-coming-back' trip if you ask me."

Rilath shook his head slightly at Jirus. "You wouldn't think I would let the three of you get killed now would you?" The gang looked at each other slightly confused at Rilath's words. "Well, what I mean to say is that I have another three fellow members to help you guys out on your little trip."

"Where are they then?" Asked Goilir. Just right after he had said those words, they heard the sound of someone running up the stairs. As the gang turned around to see a Gnome Warlock bursting through the door panting like hell (He must have run all the way to the place.)

"Sorry I'm late, did I-"

"Raer?" Jirus exclaimed.

"Oh, hello Dad!" Raer said brightly to Jirus with that stupid grin on his face. "I see you guys are on the same mission with me and my guys." Before Jirus became a Death Knight, he had twin sons, Raer and Donvan, with a Gnome wife that Jirus often described as the 'scum of the Alliance.' However, it was just that she was a bitch to poor Jirus most of the time; Jirus could of never been happy when they finally divorced, to him, and he has lot of warm memories after that. Apart from Jirus' change to Death Knight, life remained the same most of time.

Rilath sighed unimpressed. "Raer, where is the rest of your party?"

"Oh, they're here too," Raer answered while looking behind him. "They should be up here soon. Hurry up, Brale!"

Stumbling into the room, a clearly drunk human priest, carrying a bottle of ale, collapsed into the room. Not a good first impression to the rest of the group.

"I apologise for your choice of healer," Rilath sighed. "He was last of the healers that can help you out, remember the rest are helping the rest of the guild's healers are helping out on that raid remember."

"Don't worry about this," Raer said helping Brale up on his feet. "He's really good as a healer though."

"'Ello sir!" answered the priest as he managed to get back on his feet. Kogan just shook his head at the strange pair. "Well, I guess he'll have to do, it's better than no healer."

Jirus then looked back at Raer. "Wait, where's the sixth pers-?"

Almost as soon as he said it, in came a female Night elf hunter with a pet wolf companion by her side. The motley gang all looked at her. "H-Hello" the female hunter slightly stuttered at the group. Jirus noted that she seemed quite young and a bit shy compared to the other Night elves he had seen in around Azeroth.

"Guys," Raer introduced. "This is Nedia, our hunter…wait."

The rest of the guys all noticed Goilir glaring at Nedia. With another hunter in the group, no doubt it may cause some rivalry between the two.

"Why do we need another hunter?" Goilir spat out. Rilath, getting off from his desk and walking towards them, tired to make amends between the two hunters.

"Listen," said Rilath calmly. "You may be two hunters, but both of you have different aspects, Nedia, what is yours?"

"Beast mastery, sir."

"Yours, Goilir?"

"Marksmanship"

"Well there you go. Both of you have different aspects but both will be useful for this assignment." While most the group seem to feel comfortable about their guild master's words, yet Goilir seemed to have his doubts."

"Aye that might be true," Goilir replied. "But still, I want to see if she can be up to this task." He turned to look at the other hunter. "Let's have a duel, lass."

"Fine then," Nedia spoke softly. "Meet outside then." With that said, the group went downstairs following the hunters outside to watch the duel. It did seem stranger that both hunters had a wolf for their pet, added a bit more frustration to the dwarf hunter. By this time, the handful of members that were in the house had now all come out to watch the duel take place.

"You sure she'll be ok?" muttered Jirus to Kogan as they with the other members formed a semi-circle around the two hunters. "Of course aye," Kogan nodded. "Remember, anyone who duels Goilir has a good chance anyway." Kogan slightly chuckled at his own words. The crowd of guild members all chatted to each other excitedly, a Worgen and human both made a small bet on the two. Just then,Rilath, carrying a duel flag that had been hanging on the wall, came outside and put the flag up. At this point, the small crowd stopped speaking.

"Alright you two, ready?" Both of the hunters nodded, who were in position to fight. "three, two, one, fight!"

Rilath leapt back just in time before he was knocked over by the two wolfs charging into each other. Goilir immediately began firing shots at the Night elf with his musket, though Nedia narrowly avoid them while firing arrows at the Dwarf. The small crowd began cheering them on saying things like 'go on get in there,' or throwing the occasional bit of rotten fruit. Jirus was quite impressed to see how well Nedia was holding up against Goilir, as well as her pet that nearly had the Dwarf's wolf pinned down. The two hunters' axes clashed and very briefly they all saw a small spark flying from one of the axes as they hit each other again, showing how intense the fight was. Suddenly, Goilir knocked off one of Nedia's mail shoulder pads off and gave the Night elf a small gash on her check in the process. The female hunter then came back knocking off the Dwarf's helm with her axe, but failed to give a similar gash like her own to the Dwarf's face that Goilir managed to block. After a few close moments that could of killed one of them, Goilir with one blow from his axe knocked the Night elf huntress to the ground.

The crowd that had been cheering both of them on now were silent. Goilir had won. But the crowd then noticed that Goilir's pet had been beaten, and had several large wounds around its body. Rilath stepped forward, with a small smile on his lips, and looked at the two hunters.

"With the fact that Goilir won against Nedia, but in the process Nedia's wolf won against Goilir's, I call this match a draw."

Everyone else looked at each other surprised. "This duel has shown that you two are equal and ready for the task that lies ahead," Rilath said to them while helping the Night elf up.

"Those who will be going on this trip to Kalimdor will need to know the following." With that said, the chosen six stepped out from the crowd, listening intently to their guild master's words. "You must find an inn to stay for the night. I apologise for not allowing you to stay here for the night as I have business to attend to here. At about nine o'clock in the morning, you shall head off from the harbour here and sail for about three days to Kalimdor; you shall be taking the ship to Teldrassil."

The six members looked at each other with confused expressions of going the long way round. "The reason for going in that direction being that the Horde has upgraded their defences to the east. More importantly that you can't fly to Ashenvale, the Horde have guards on flying mounts patrolling the sky which means you'll have to take your ground-based mounts, we must not let your movement be tracked by them. Do not fail this, understand?"

"Yes, sir," said the chosen six answered.

"Well for your first task," began Rilath. "You'll have to find a room for the night, and knowing that many people are here in Stormwind after Winter's veil and new year could be a problem. But there should be some left. Now get going."

On those words, the group of six quickly rushed to the guild stable behind the building to collect their ground-based mounts. It was now a race for them to see who could find a room for the night.

**XxX**

Surprisingly, each of them all found a room, but not at the same inn. First Kogan left them after finding an inn in the Dwarven district, then Raer and Brale left when they found a room for themselves, though thankfully for Jirus, had two beds in the room (He would hated to think that his son had gone gay!) Then Goilir left them after finding a room in the Old Town section. That just left Jirus and Nedia. After franticly searching high and low around the city, they found two rooms at an Inn in the Trade District.

Although they we're in different rooms, the inn keeper couldn't help but ask them if they could share the same room and bed with each other. This of course made them blush crossly at the innkeeper, Jirus just asked then quickly afterwards to get the keys for their rooms, which the Innkeeper did, though still finding his own words rather funny.

"What was he on about?" Jirus asked Nedia as they walked upstairs to their rooms.

"Just being smart," Nedia chuckled. "Still, I wouldn't mind if you changed your mind about sharing my room, I wouldn't mind."

Jirus gave a disgusted look, which she just found rather humorous considering that he was, like other Death Knights, hadn't a sense of humour. Jirus tried to change the topic by asking the Night elf huntress where his room might be.

Their rooms were strangely next to each other, mind you, they must have been the last rooms available.

"Hey, Nedia," Jirus said to the huntress, who had just opened the door to her room. "Yes?" She asked, which her pet wolf tilted its head at the Gnome.

"Look about Goilir," Jirus sighed rubbing the back of his head. "About tonight, sorry he had to act like that to you, he's just-"

"I know," Nedia interrupted, giving him a small smile. "He just wasn't expected another hunter on the team, I can understand how he feels." She then knelt down to match the Gnome's height, which Jirus saw up close her flawless looking face. He then felt something in him quite fuzzy. He wasn't sure why, must have been how awkward how this scene must of looked, with her kneeling down, anyone would of thought they might be up to something.

"Hopefully on this mission, we'll all get along better and get to know each other,"smiled the Night elf. Nedia then stood up again and walked into her room. Jirus could only watch her perfect body seeming to sway as she walked. "Good night, Jirus," Nedia smiled at him one more time before leaving him in the corridor. "Erm, night-night then," Jirus said as his words seem to stumble out from his mouth.

Nedia's wolf companion looked back its owner, then to the Jirus. Jirus almost thought for a second that the animal had a thoughtful look in its eyes. "What you looking at?" Jirus snorted at the wolf as it walked into Nedia's room with its owner closing the door.

"_That was…rather strange,"_ Jirus thought as he walked into his room closing the door. _"She seems ok, I guess." _

He couldn't understand how received that fuzzy feeling from Nedia, even when he finally fell asleep on the bed.

"_I must be loosing my mind, some Death Knight I turned out to be." _

_

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_**So that's where we'll start of from. I apologised if this chapter was a bit flat, it's just the start of of anything you write is always hard anyway, it will get better, hopefully! Please Review or whatever and tell me what you think. **


	2. The Journey Begins

**Hello fellow readers, here we go with the second chapter! I apologise that some updates may come less due to me starting college again after my christmas break (At the time of writing.) Still, this is a story I'm enjoying writing, which is always important when your writing anything like this, mainly as you feel more motivated, this does count for many helpful reviews! So here we go... **

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**Part 2 **

**The Journey Begins**

It was the start of another cold, frosty day in Stormwind that morning, and Jirus was still fast asleep snoring loudly. It is a known fact to those who know the Jirus that he is a heavy sleeper and often is late for occasions in the morning; and it was looking like this was going to be one of these days. Just then, the Death Knight bolted upright after being awaked by something or someone banging on his door. Getting off the oversized bed and with only his armoured plated trousers on, he grumbled to himself as he walked to the door. Opening it, he was surprised to see Nedia all dressed in her armour, with her wolf pet beside her, looking like she was ready to go. She wasn't pleased with the Gnome.

"You not dressed yet?" Exclaimed Nedia. "It's ten to eight in the morning, we got to get going soon!" By this point, the Gnome realised what she was on about, and without a wasted second, he quickly grabbed his armour that lay on the floor (He was an untidy sort.)

Nedia didn't know whenever she should have been crossed with him for nearly sleeping in, or finding the Gnome struggling to get his armour on rather amusing. After a few frantic seconds with him get his shoulder pads on, he dashed out of the room, still trying to get his helm on. The Night elf huntress guess that he was now ready and quickly followed him down the stairs to their mounts, those were outside at the stable nearby. A few people that were having their breakfast downstairs saw the frantic pair rushing outside. It seemed like they had gone in a flash and many of those down there couldn't tell what had happened.

The two guild members found there mounts nestled outside tied up at the stable, both of them wanting to get going by the way they tried to pull at the reigns that had them tied up. Their mounts almost took a running when they were freed from their reigns. Jirus had just equipped himself with his helm when he mounted on his Turbostrider. Soon enough, they were rushing to the harbour, almost knocking down a few people as they went. The two fellow guild members didn't speak a word to each other as they entered the harbour, both we keeping a close on the dock which ships head to Teldrassil.

As they got closer to the dock bay, they could see Kogan, Goilir, Raer and Brale on their mounts waiting for Jirus and Nedia. Thankfully, the two of them had just made it, thought their comrades didn't look impressed with their timekeeping.

"What kept you guys?" Asked a now sober Brale.

"Oh you should know what kept dad and Nedia," replied the gnome warlock with a tinge of being sneaky.

"Like what?" Asked Goilir, rubbing the side of his head.

"Well if you'd like to know," began Raer, raising his eyebrow up and down. "The reason for them being late is that they were just recovering from their little antics in bed last night."

With Nedia behind Raer, she gave him a quick slap round the back of his head, much to the amusement of the rest of the group. "Damn lady!" Cried Raer rubbing the back of his head. "Can you no take a jok-"

"Guys! Here it comes!" Kogan interrupted as he saw their ship coming into the harbour, bang on nine o'clock. As their ship came in, they could see a few, tired looking people getting ready to get off. They had a rough night crossing due to stormy weather, poor them. As soon as the ship finally stopped, the gang went on. The first thing to do now on aboard was to get their mounts stabled in the ship's holding bay. Anyone who owns a mount would know that keeping a mount stabled for three days in a holding bay would of course make it upset and restless, especially if it was going to be a rough sea crossing. While Jirus had no problem with his Turbostrider (giving the fact that it is machine) and Raer only needing to summon his mount, the others had to calm their pets as much as they could. By the time they did managed to calm them down, the ship had left the harbour behind and was on its way to Kalimdor.

**XXX**

About three hours into their trip later, things had been uneventful. So far, no one had gotten sick yet, remember...**yet**, yet they had been told that stormy weather was expected on the trip later on they were told from the captain. Down in the holding area of the ship, Jirus was quietly pacing up and down in his compartment. He wasn't thinking about the mission that he should have had, but his mind was somewhere else, he had been doing this for about half an hour. At this point, the poor gnome had now completely almost forgot what he had been thinking of in the first place.

"_Damn it," _he thought, feeling his throat a bit dry. "Suppose I could do with a drink." With that, Jirus left his compartment to head to the trader on the ship that sold drinks. As he was about to head up the stairs, he came face-to-face with Nedia and her wolf companion. At first sight of her, he felt that horrid fuzzy feeling inside him.

"There you are, Jirus," said a reassured Nedia. "I was beginning to wonder if you had thrown yourself off the ship."

"Why the hell would I want to do that?" Jirus asked surprised at the Night elf's words.

Nedia just shook her head and sat down next to him on the second step to match his height. "Just to let you know Jirus, Kogan has…gotten seasick."

The Death Knight almost fell backwards when he heard this, but one the words sank into him, he laughed out loud.

"What's so funny?" snapped the huntress.

"Well," Jirus began as he sat next to Nedia, showing a small smile. "With him going on about this trip in mines and Goilir's faces, it's nice to see him shut up for a change."

The slender huntress just looked at him unimpressed, yet could feel how relived he must have been if what the stumpy Death Knight had said was true. "Mind you," Jirus continued. "It has been a while since any of us were on a ship, so it can be said that he's lost his sea legs overtime."

Nedia suddenly let out a small giggle, which left the two of them smiling at each other. However they both looked away quickly after they both had been staring at each other while a bit too long. This time, both of them had that fuzzy feeling inside of them (_"Damn it that feeling!" _thought Jirus.) The two of them remained quiet for a bit, the atmosphere between them feeling quite awkward.

"So," asked Jirus after sometime. Only to try and get them speaking again. "What's the name of your pet?"

Nedia smiled and looked down at her wolf pet stroking it, which was lying beside their feet. "His name is Gorin," she replied.

"Gorin? That's a nice name," said Jirus. "Goilir's pet is called Ranar."

The Night elf rubbed her chin thinking about her first encounter with Goilir. "Has he always been like that?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You know, like when he saw me for the first time."

"Oh, of course not!" Jirus shook his head. "He is the quiet one of the three of us, it's just that recently his been a bit, well… up in arms about things."

Nedia listened closely to him. "Well it all started when my other son, Donvan, the gnome warrior. He was out an about doing various quests and stuff in Stranglethorn Vale, along the way, he met with this Draenai Warrior woman called Vollane, really nice girl if I do say so myself. After a few weeks out there, Donvan brought her to see us, we all seem to like her, but Goilir was different."

"What happened?" Asked Nedia.

"Well, it's fair to say that he was completely star-struck when he saw her, or you can say fell in love with her. Of course he thought that she was Donvan's girl but of course she wasn't, but that was start of it."

Nedia looked at Jirus, tightly gripping the lower part of her guild tabard.

"The two of them got into a fierce rivalry to try and win the heart of Vollane. This lasted for days until one day; a near death fight between them was the last straw. Vollane decided that Donvan was not her type, but Goilir was."

"Why did she choose him?

"Quite simple really, he had acted a bit more kindly to her while Donvan was always wanting to drag her off to places, let's face it, you'd get annoyed if some guy was always wanting to take you off to places. Now at present, the two warriors are currently out in Outland, Hope to the gods that he doesn't make a move on her, or Goilir will rip him to pieces."

Nedia let out another giggle when she heard this. "But have Goilir's and Donvan's relationship cooled down yet?"

"To put it bluntly, still tense. He'd be lucky if he gets a wedding invitation from them. I just wish he'd listen to me." Jirus looked down at the floor sadly

There was another moment of silence after that. Jirus almost let out a small gasp when he felt Nedia's hand touch his. His stomach was tying itself in knots when he looked at her perfect face. He had to admit, she was really beautiful.

"You don't have to worry about Donvan," Nedia said to him calmly. "Donvan has learnt his lesions. Even if he does step out of place, Vollane _will _put him in his place, and you can focus on your own goal…this mission."

For some reason, that wonderful smile she showed him just made him feel like some of his bad memories were washing away and filling them with happy memories. The Gnome couldn't help but smile back at her. "Thanks, Nedia."

Sadly, the moment was ruined from a call from on deck. "Nedia!" shouted Raer. "Kogan looks like he's going to throw up again, give him some of these herbs you have!"

The Night elf huntress quickly sat up and turned to head up the stairs. "Sorry about this," she sighed sadly to Jirus before running off with Gorin following closely behind.

It was ironic to think that Jirus had thanked the Gods for getting Kogan sick just to shut him up, now he cursed them for ruining the moment between him and Nedia. But wait, why did he enjoy it? Jirus thought for a bit about it, then his eyes widened. He felt like he had been a fool for not realising earlier on how he felt around her. The answer was simple. He was in love…with a Night elf!

Jirus just sat there with his head in his hands groaning sadly. He wouldn't mind if she had been another Gnome, but a Night elf? Ok, he did have a thing for Night elf woman when he was younger, but he had grown up a bit. Was these fantasies of his coming back to haunt him? He couldn't think like this, especially on this important mission from the guild.

**XXX**

Three days later after they first set off from Stormwind, despite being slightly delayed due some storms on route, everyone was glad to see that the long trip was coming to an end when they saw The large tree stump getting closer and closer, mostly from a certain Dwarf Warrior! Their mounts couldn't be happier when they were walked up on the deck, they were dying to get off. After stopping here at Teldrassil, they would head off to Ashenvale for their dangerous mission…and hopefully come back alive.

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**Review please if you want more! Was a bit fluffy don't you think? Still, was fun writing this chapter I guess. Next one maybe not on for about a month due to college, I still need some motivation! **


	3. Changed Ashenvale

**Hello again! College work and other stuff have been going up the ass for me, but hey, I managed to squeeze this chapter out. At this point, the story kicks off. Though for some reason, I ain't too happy with this chapter, must of been wanting to get this one out quickly and that I was writing this at 11 pm. Still, I'am an impatient sort mind you. Oh well. So without further a-do, off we go! **

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**Part 3**

**Changed Ashenvale **

As soon as the ship finally docked, the gang went charging off the ship with their mounts towards the griffon master nearby. A slightly sick Kogan was to speak to the griffon master about where they wanted to go. The plan was to take a griffon to Lor'danel and continue the rest of the trip to Ashenvale from their ground-based mounts. The motley gang seemed a bit confused about this 'Lor'danel' place, however they were shocked when they heard about that it had been destroyed and had been taken over by air elementals.

The group were then stuck with another problem, how were they suppose to take their mounts over to Darkshore? Lucky for them, a heavily armored human in leather (possibly a rogue) on his Netherwing drake was just about to head off on the ship back to Stormwind when Kogan shouted out at him for his assistance.

"Sorry about this, lad," said Kogan when the human walked up to them on his mount."

"What seems to be the problem, mate?" asked the human who sounded like he had a bit of a sore throat.

Kogan was about to explain, but Nedia interrupted him suddenly. "We need your drake to help get our mounts over to Lor'danel."

The rogue looked at their mounts with a raised eyebrow. "Where are _your _flying mounts then?"

"Look, the thing is…" Kogan answered but paused a bit looking around him to make sure no one was listening and then leaned in a bit closer to him and whispered. "We have been given a mission from our guild to head to Ashenvale to slow down Horde movements, so we can't fly in as they have flying mounts scanning the air."

The human rogue looked generally shocked at them about their important task. "Um, right, right." Stuttered the human, rubbing the back of his head. "You fly over to Darkshore and I'll take care of your mounts, right?"

Kogan give him a small nod before the gang paid their fair to head over to Lor'danel.

**XXX **

Raer was the last of the group to arrive into Lor'danel, where the rest of the group was staring around at this new place. The settlement itself felt different from the rest of Darkshore with it's various bright colourful buildings and brilliant green grass completely contrasted from the utter bleakness of Darkshore. The last of their mounts came in shortly behind.

To get them over, the rogue had used his drake's great claws to bring the mounts over, which all seemed all terrified after being up in the air. Raer thankfully just needed to summon his mount and was all set to go, while the rest of the gang had the sad task of trying to calm their mounts down, the human rogue had flown back to Rut'theran Village, clearly wanting to make sure that he didn't take the blame for scaring the mounts. It took about five minutes to clam the mounts down, which Raer had been watching them in boredom but did admire this new Night elf settlement. The rest of the group didn't have the time to admire though as they were finally off to Ashenvale. The mounts were happy to finally stretch their legs as they ran through the bleak landscape of Darkshore.

"I can remember questing here in my early days as a hunter," Nedia said sadly to Jirus as her mount ran alongside his mount.

"I briefly remember being here though," Jirus replied. "…It just looks the same if you ask me."

Nedia give a slight giggle at the death knight's point of view of how he saw the place.

"If my memory serves me well," he added. "Kogan was badly wanting to get his reputation up with you Night elves, poor them never saw the end of it as he asked nearly all day to anyone here for quests. Wonder why I even stand him."

The slender huntress let out a small laugh. "Your still with him as he is your friend, as well as Goilir."

"…Much like how you are." Jirus' eyes widened at what he had just said and covered his mouth with his hand and looked at her while she looked at him wide eye at first, then give him a heavenly smile.

"Oh, so I'm one of your friends now?" She asked with a slight sarcastic tone.

"Uhm well, what I meant was…yes," Jirus said quickly and quickly turned her gaze off her and started looking straight ahead of him. _"How does she do it?"_ he thought as he could feel himself blush.

"Hurry up you two!" Cried Kogan up in front looking back at them. Jirus and Nedia hadn't noticed that they were lagging behind and immediately starting catching up with them.

**XXX **

After a fairly uneventful trip down Darkshore, the group had now entered through the western entrance of Ashenvale. Already, the group could see many different things in Ashenvale from whenever they were last there. They slowed down their mounts to try and look around for a place to camp for the night, safe from preying Horde eyes. It maybe a thought why they didn't use a nearby camp or inn to stay for the night, but Kogan as always said that they had to give the ultimate element of surprise on the attacking Horde. Secretly, the group had lingering thoughts about their Dwarf leader.

The group eventually found a cave in the foothills near the now Horde-occupied Silverwing Refuge, Kogan said that this would be an excellent location for spying on the enemy. Raer though seemed to have his own doubts about the cave.

"A bit gloomy in there don't you think?" He asked his fellow guild members.

"Well it's a cave," sighed Nedia. "If it had lights it'll be a house, now don't say that you're scared of the dark."

While the rest of the motley gang chuckled a bit at Raer's embarrassment, Jirus couldn't help but notice of seeing a change in Nedia's personality. One part of her seemed quite kind, polite and caring, while the other half seemed quite haughty how he saw her act with his Warlock son. Gods know how fierce she might be in battle.

As the gang managed to get a fire going in the cave, Brale and Kogan left to check on the surrounding area outside, Goilir went with Raer to check any more forces coming into Ashenvale, this just left Nedia and Jirus to guard the cave while everyone else was away. The gang had all noted that Nedia was quite a good cook, it was nice change compared to Raer's bad cooking skills, Jirus could never forget when Raer nearly burnt their house down, but then again that's another story…

Jirus couldn't help but notice that Nedia had a look of sadness washed on her face, he just hope that Raer hadn't said anything about her cooking.

"Something up?" Asked Jirus, with some concern in his voice, very rare for him to sound like that.

"Oh no, nothing about me just…" the night elf paused to look towards Silverwing Refuge nearby. "It's just that so much has changed here."

Jirus sighed. "Is it something about this place you like before it changed?"

"I grew up in Ashenvale with my parents," Nedia replied looking back at the death knight. "We had a wonderful place in Silverwing I remember."

Jirus felt a tinge of sadness for the elf. Strangely reminded him of his early days growing up in Gnomeregan. "And your parents?"

"My mother is still around, but my farther…" she looked away from him, turning her gaze to the glowing fire.

The gnome thought he must of said too much. "Oh damn I'm sorry, I didn't mean too—"

"No it's alright," Nedia said calmly. "He was a guard around Silverwing, and well, me and my mother heard the news that he was killed from attacking Horde. This was about two months ago now. It's ok now we did get over it, it's just that being here again…"

The two of them remained silent for a time while Jirus thought about what he heard. His own parents had died during the trogg invasion of Gnomeregan. No wasn't a kid then when his parents died, he had been twenty-three then. Still, the memory still burned in his head, his twin boys had to grow up without any grandparents. It was starting to feel strange how much he and the Huntress had in common.

His train of thought was suddenly stopped when he heard the sound of roofs rushing near their cave. Both knew that was the sound of Goilir's ram heading towards them. Goilir's ram skidded to a stop on the outside of the cave, his mail amour looked pretty bent slightly and he was red face with sweat coming down.

"Come on, hurry!" cried Goilir. Nedia and Jirus didn't need to know anything else what was going on. Without a second to loose, they scrambled onto their mounts (which were outside at the time) and followed the dwarf hunter to the battle.

**XXX**

Not long after, they saw Kogan, Raer and Brale (who seemed to be drinking a bottle of rum while healing them,) who were up against a large mob of about thirty guards, Orc and Tauren guards. Nedia and Goilir started firing their weapons at nearby fighting guards, while Jirus summoned his ghoul to fight with him. The guards were fierce opponents and letting no sign of retreating, Jirus' ghoul was holding up a decent fight with two guards, normally the damn thing would of gotten killed by now.

Goilir was firing his blunderbuss like there was no tomorrow, and even destroyed the bottle of rum Brale had in his hand! The rum spilt down onto the drunken priest's silky blue robs, much to his annoyance.

"What the hell was that for?" Brale hiccupped as he turned to look at Goilir, forgetting to heal the group. Goilir however just managed to shoot at an attacking guard who had his guy on the human.

Kogan and Jirus kept doing back-to-back fighting, keeping themselves in a center as they fought of the Horde guards. Then Kogan charged at an attack guard and used his polearm, stabbing him through his chest, before he was knocked down from another guard. Raer on the other hand was using every last drop of his mana for his fire attacks, burning up the enemy troops.

"Come on ya daft bastards!" Raer taunted to he Horde troops. "A three-year-old could fight better than you lot!" All this taunting however was only getting him more attacks to him. The stupid Gnome never knew when to shut up.

Jirus was nearly getting crushed by the amount of horde troops attack him, blood was soaked all over his face, some of it being his own. Nedia and Goilir on the other hand were surprisingly holding up well, firing arrows and bullets into the troops while their wolf companions were let loose on the Horde scum.

Brale's dodgy healing wasn't doing the group any favors. With him nearly smashed, everything was all blurry for him, and he could only heal them when he could see something stand out from the crowd of red, green and brown (Orcs and Tauren in amour) or if any of them shouted out 'fucking heal me!'

Jirus and Kogan were both lost in the crowd, so it made things harder for Goilir and Nedia to make sure they didn't hit their two group members. Just as Jirus give an orc and finishing attack to its head, Jirus felt something painful hitting him from behind. Whatever had hit caused him to fall to the ground, nearly loosing his sword. Even with him on the ground, the gnome was trying all he could against the various troops wanting to kill him.

"Jirus! Look out!" Cried Nedia. Within her words, he felt something hit his head and everything went black.

**XXX **

Not long after the skirmish that the Horde troops faced against the motley gang, the lucky wounded few who survived stumbled through the gate much to the surprise of the other troops that were around the base. Their squad leader, an orc, had survived along with the other few, though he was dreading about meeting face-to-face with the general of the base. He wasn't to sure about what might happen to him for this failure, but whatever he was going to receive would be a terrible punishment or worse. Many troops on the camp were scared shitless about him and even the thought of being asked to talk to him was too much to the strong elite troops.

While the troops were left to various healers tending to their wounds, the squad leader, along with his undead second-in-command, headed of to see the general inside the keep. To say that the orc was terrified about this was a true understatement, he felt like any moment now he'd be pissing himself in fear. His heartbeat started to go faster as he walked closer and closer towards the door that the general was in.

The General himself hated the Alliance with a burning passion and always supported their current Warchief's views that their last one, Thrall. Slightly gulping at first, he knocked on the door hoping for a response.

No sound could be heard for a moment or two, which only scared the orc and his undead companion even more. He and his undead companion looked at each other nervously. Their only hope was he might be out and receiving new intrusions' from Garrosh, then he may have a reprieve.

"Come in," Came a gruff yet haughty voice from behind the door. Those thoughts were shattered when they heard that voice. Opening the door slowly, the orc and the undead walked into the dimly lit torched room. Right in front of them, sitting behind his desk, the general sat.

Although he was sitting in the shadows and only showing a very brief outline of his large body, he was clearly a large orc, his eyes had a dangerous and sickly look to them. Just the sight of the general caused the orc and the undead to be silent, too scared to even utter a word.

"What is you what?" Asked the general, his voice booming as he spoke.

"W-We have n-news for y-you sir, b-bad news" The orc stuttered, the sweat that was running down his face really showed everything how he was feeling.

"And what is news you have then?" The general asked again, crossing his arms unimpressed.

"Me and my squad," The orc began, now seeming to have his voice back. "Were attacked from a passing Alliance party…"

With the general sitting in the shadows, it was impossible to tell what his facial expression was, that was the worst thing for the orc and undead to think about.

"…More!" The general snapped at the orc for his waiting, this caused the two to flinch (As well as the other two guards the general had with him.)

"Of the fifty troops I had with me…twenty-six survived." The orc couldn't even bare to look at his leader.

"How many did this Alliance party have?"

"S-Six—"

"SIX!" The general roared, now standing up showing his huge height, showing that he was about a head taller than most orcs (Possible around the same height as Garrosh to be honest.)

The smaller orc was so terrified by the general's outburst that he couldn't possible stand up and was forced to his knees.

"P-Please!" The orc said, "They attacked w-when we l-least—"

"ENOUGH!" The general shouted again. "You have failed me commander…" And from under his desk, he pulled out a large sturdy crossbow, aiming it at the orc. The orc couldn't even run for his life he was so scared.

"Now you'll pay the penalty for your uselessness."

"No! Please Don—"

The crossbow fired at the orc through his chest, shortly of course dropping to the floor on his side. The undead and the two guards looked down in shock at the former orc squad leader.

"Take his worthless corpse away from my sight," The general hissed as he sat down and placed the crossbow under his desk. Responding to this, the two guards carried away the body out of the room, much to the shock of the shaken undead.

"As for you," The general spoke to the undead, thinking that he'll have a similar fate. "…Don't fail me…commander. Now get out!"

The new undead commander gave a nervous salute and ran out of the room to the other troops outside.

The general let out a low angry growl as he thought about what had happened. _"They must now know our presence," _he thought. _"They'll bring an army down to wipe us out."_

"Sibnick!" Shouted the general, "Get in here now!" Rushing into the room, a rather rich looking goblin, carry pockets filled with gold, came forth.

"Yeah, what'd ya want?" Asked Sibnick in a sly tone as all goblins used.

"We need to send out a report out to Garrosh for more troops right away," The general explained.

The goblin looked at him wide-eyed in shock. "What? More? But we already ordered about fifty of them and they cost me nearly an arm and a leg!"

"Half of them were wiped out today!"

"What…?"

"No slip ups or excuses," snapped the general. "I want them here soon, looks like our own base will be expecting an attack soon."

The goblin muttered out a nervous 'yes' before hurrying off down the hallway. "Oh shit," Sibnick muttered to himself. "More good money down the drain." Like all goblins, all he cared about was money and woman; he didn't give a damn for the solders that the general ordered, only why he was doing this was that it was head if he didn't follow orders from him. Unknown to him, this would be most important for him for his life.

**XXX**

Jirus heard very small voices at first, and then they got progressively louder. His blackened vision began to fade as he could now see Nedia and Raer looking over him. Giving a quick look at his surroundings, he could see that they were in the cave and that it was nightfall.

"He's waking up!" said Raer in amazement. Nedia give the death knight a smile as he began to wake up. Then almost to anyone's surprise, she gave him a bone-crushing hug.

"I'm so glad you're alright!" She said in a relived tone.

Jirus was secretly enjoying the moment being this close to her. She smelt of wet flowers from what Jirus could tell but…

"Erm," Jirus began. "I'm chocking here…"

Nedia quickly pulled away from hugging him tightly and give him a quick apology; Raer had a thoughtful expression on his face as he rubbed his chin.

"What happened?" The death knight asked.

"Well you and Kogan got knocked out," came the sound of Goilir's voice from the other side of the cave, which he had a slight cut just above his eye. "Nedia was the one who saved your arses."

Jirus turned to look at her in amazement. "You?"

She gave him a shy nod. "It was nothing…"

"Nothing?" called out Kogan, who was sitting beside Goilir. "You're the hero for saving us. You took most of them out, and I mean half of them, which caused them to retreat! Mind you, we could of done better if our healer was more sober…" Everyone, except Raer, gave their healer a cold look, which his head was lowered, clearly thinking that it was his fault. On his blue robes, the rum that was spilt on him was still there. Did he even clean his robes?

"I don't know where you pick them up from," Jirus groaned at his son.

"Oh come on guys," said Raer in an optimistic tone. "He just needs his mana."

"Would be better if it wasn't alcohol related, dumbass," snapped Goilir.

There was an awkward atmosphere in the cave for a few silent seconds, until Kogan decided to break the silence. "Come on, Brale," ordered Kogan. "Let's keep scouting for more forces they might have up their selves."

With anything in mind to get away from being there in the cave, the now sober priest followed the Dwarf outside. Jirus did feel a bit sorry for their healer, just wished he had non-alcoholic drinks to keep his mana up, oh well.

Soon as the two of them left the cave, Raer had already falling asleep snoring away. Even when he was sleeping, he was still loud. Goilir was busy tending to his wolf pet, which had been wounded during the battle. That just left Nedia to tend to Jirus' wounds. He then felt a bandage round his head.

"How badly was I hurt?" Jirus asked Nedia.

"Only a big cut on your forehead," she replied while tightening the bandage on his head. Everything just seem so comfortable with her close to him, no, he couldn't! He couldn't get soft during this time with the mission they were on, but…he just loved the moment.

"Jirus?" asked the slender huntress. Jirus snapped out of his dreamed state.

"What?" He replied.

"Were you dreaming there?"

"…Sort of."

"Of what?"

Jirus' heart would of told the truth to her, but his tongue had to lie to her. "…Just thinking about what happened."

Nedia's hand cupped the side of Jirus' cheek, which was making him blush wildly again. "I'm just glad to see that your safe…friend."

Jirus felt his heart crack slightly, only as a friend she saw him as? Of course she would, she wouldn't want to get into a relationship with a gnome, let alone a death knight…well at least a friend was a start. Just then, her faithful wolf companion gave out a slight growl of hunger. With that, the huntress went over to see to her pet. Oh how Jirus loved seeing her slender body walk. But he had to snap out of these stupid thoughts; he was on a mission with his fellow guild members. One that neither of them knew how it was going to turn out in the end.

* * *

**Ok-e-do. Please review to keep me motivated, and tell me what could happen next! Next chapter will be out...erm...whenever I have lots of time. **


	4. Flowers in the Dirt

**Phew, thank god I got this chapter up. You won't believe how busy I have been this week, with college, driving lesions and more. But still, I managed to get this one up. This is a self titled chapter, which you may see in all future fanfictions and what not. The title of the story, Flowers in the Dirt, is the name from Paul McCartney's '89 album (Bloody good one if I say so myself.) But the idea of the name seemed rather fitting with Nedia being the flowers and Jirus being the dirt. So before I bore you with anything else I say, here we go! **

* * *

**Part 4**

**Flowers in the Dirt**

"_It's not safe round here now since they must have found out about us after our attack." _Thought the death knight.

Kogan kept looking round with Jirus for anymore Horde mobs as he headed west with Kogan. Jirus couldn't be bothered to even argue with the Dwarf Warrior, what seemed like six in the morning he had awaked him. Oh trust him to be the one that had to be chosen to go off with him for the morning.

"Something's not right," muttered Jirus.

"How come?" Asked Kogan

"It's all too quiet here…" Jirus halted his mount for a second to keep a look out before catching up with the warrior.

Jirus' mind though, to tell the truth, wasn't on looking out for Horde. All he wanted was to spend time with Nedia, the only person that seemed to thaw at his icy heart, though he didn't let anyone know about it. He did wonder what would happen after this mission if they all went back home in one piece. Maybe he could confess his love for her as soon as they got back? No too early, maybe get to know her more in some months and when the time was right, and_ then _he could confess. Yes, that sounded better. Kogan shouting at him however interrupted His train of thought.

"Quick! Hide behind the trees!"

Without him knowing why Kogan needed them to hide for, Jirus quickly followed him behind the trees. Once they seemed safe from prying eyes and had quickly un-mounted, Jirus then could see, just through a small gap in a bush, a large mob of mounted Horde solders (about fifty of them) came through on route towards Felwood.

"Have you noticed that they've all been heading towards Felwood?" Asked Kogan in a hush voice.

"Maybe their next stage of attack?" Replied the death knight. He had guessed the thought up, but Kogan looked at him with a stunned expression. "…What?"

In just a few seconds, Kogan mounted up on his precious Stormsaber. "Let's follow them, who knows what they may be up too."

Mounting his own Turbostrider, though slightly slipped when trying to mount, followed after Kogan and the rest of the Horde Solders towards Felwood. They didn't follow them taking the road, but followed them through the trees just to make sure they didn't catch the attention of the solders.

Jirus did wonder why the Horde wanted Felwood, he hated it there if he remember so well before he became a Death Knight. "How long do we…great gods." Jirus and Kogan gapped at what they saw before them.

Blocking up the way into the Felwood was a large steal wall, like at Orgrimmar. The fort itself was not of Alliance built, but of Horde. So this was what their guild master had been wondering about what was going on at the entrance of Felwood, the answer lay before them.

"…We're going to need more guys for this," said a shaken Jirus after looking at the fort's strong defenses. Guards were everywhere on this wall, Jirus and Kogan took note that on the top parts of the wall, that harpoon type cannons were in a upright position, maybe to shoot down Griffon rides coming in or out of Felwood. Jirus and Kogan noticed that some Horde solders were mounted on Wyverns flying around the area, must've been to keep an eye out on anything going on in the area behind the thick steal wall.

Whoever was in Felwood in this moment in time would be trapped and with no way out.

"We must get back to the others," replied Kogan as he took chase back to their camp.

"_He never stops now, doesn't he?"_ thought Jirus shaken his head as he followed him. _"Perhaps there ain't no coming back, just death." _

**XXX **

The two friends were still in shock thinking about what they had witnessed as they drew nearer to the camp. Kogan felt for the first time in ages his heart sinking in doubt. Jirus just seemed more concerned that he wasn't going have the chance to tell the Night elf huntress how he felt about her. When they got back to the camp, they were surprised of what must have been happening when they were gone.

Raer and Nedia were arguing about something, with Goilir and Brale sitting on a fallen log looking at them unimpressed. Judging by the spilt cooking pot, one of them (Presumably Raer judging how angry the Night elf looked) must've spelt it over. Kogan and Jirus were both surprised to see how furious Nedia looked; this wasn't like her at all to say the least.

Nedia's angry face soon softened when she saw the pair returning from their morning outing.

"What is goin' on here? " Asked Kogan, which the arguing pair turned to look at him.

"Raer ruined our food for the day!" Snorted Nedia.

"It wasn't my fault!" Raer retaliated, "I never saw the damn pot as it seemed to blend in with the ground!"

To be honest, the cooking pot's blackish grey colour did seem to blend in with the slightly burnt grass, or perhaps Raer just was an ass as he always was to poor Nedia for running her meal; and judging by the wonderful smell, it would have been excellent.

"Forget the food," Jirus told them. "You won't believe us what the Horde have cooked up at the entrance of Felwood."

The rest of the gang, except Kogan, looked at each other wondering what it could be. "What did you guys find?" Asked Brale.

"The Horde have built a large keep there," Kogan replied. "Forces there are immense. No one can get in or out of there." The rest of the gang gaped in shock. Nedia covered her mouth with her hand; Goilir grabbed the sides of the log he was sitting while Brale nearly fell off the log backwards when they heard Kogan's words. While the rest of them couldn't believe what they heard, Raer seemed, to put it bluntly, to have a blank stare on his face.

"Well what were you guys thinking?" Asked Raer. "You do know that the Horde are always up to something, so this is no surprise if you ask me." The motley gang turned to look at him slowly with unimpressed looks on their faces.

"That's what you think," Nedia snapped at him. "Your attitude is really making my head rattle, stupid Gnome."

"Hey, hey, hey!" Raer spluttered slightly waving his hands up and down to try and calm the huntress down. "I don't need you to get on back just for ruining the meal." Nevertheless, the two of them broke into yet another argument. Kogan and Jirus looked on in slight amusement of the arguing pair, Brale cover his face with the palm of his hand. Goilir on the other hand looked like he had had enough.

"Look guys," Goilir suddenly spoke up, "why don't we just go out there and hunt for any animals?" Of course he said 'animals' with some reluctance, due to his wolf pet seeming to glare at him.

It did seem strange for Goilir to speak up like that as he would always follow orders from Kogan or some other high rank individual. His idea brought a silence to the camp as everyone thought about it.

"Alright then," Kogan said after the brief silence. "Jirus and Brale, go out there and bring back some grub for us. Goilir, come with me, I have an idea that we could do to bring down that wall. And you two…" Kogan pointed at Nedia and Raer. "_Try _and get everything ready when we come back without arguing."

Jirus did find it quite ironic that his son was left in charge, along with Nedia, to have the food cooked up when they'd come back with what they could find out here. Jirus did try and forget that one time some years ago when Raer was cooking a meal and nearly burnt down the house, but then again that is another story…

**XXX **

As Kogan wanted, Jirus and Brale headed out into the forest to try and gather up food, or in this case kill animals for the food.

Surprisingly for Jirus, Brale wasn't that bad for company, when he was sober that is. Brale was actually quite a decent guy that Jirus found comfortable to talk to. The gnome was happy to tell the human priest about how he became a death knight and that wonderful day when he divorced from that bitch of a wife he had (Well Jirus seemed pretty happy to talk about it which Brale on the other hand seemed a bit confused at the gnome's strange humor.)

"…And when she left the house," Jirus concluded as he got near the end of his story were they where sitting besides a small river fishing. "I must've been the happiest Gnome in all of Azeroth."

Brale just stared at him, not knowing if he should join in with the laughter with him. "…Did you find it hard to look after your kids?"

"Not really," Jirus calmed down after his laugh. "Things did turn out alright, of course there were some little moments here and there, but nothing too serious."

_Rustle_

The two comrades stopped talking and quickly looked around from where that sound came from, the bushes behind them. Jirus tightened his grip on his two-handed sword while Brale had his bottles of rum readied, for mana purposes (He had carried them with him 'just in case'.)

_Rustle _

_Rustle _

_Rust- _

Jirus felt a great force hit from the side knocking him off his feet, he hit the ground dropping his sword and turn up to look what had knocked him down. Looking up, he could see Brale hurriedly trying to heal himself, which he himself had been knocked into the shallow water, from the attacks of a large bear. One thing was for sure is that this didn't seem like normal bears around the forest, with it's larger shape and clawed marks all over, which Jirus almost swore that he saw a Horde symbol near its head.

Without a second to spare, Jirus quickly grabbed his weapon and made a strike at the Bear. Thankfully, this caught the bear's attention away from Brale; he could now focus his healing on Jirus. What surprised the death knight the most is how strong this bear really was, Maybe it must have been an escaped animal from somewhere round here and had been furious with where it must have been before. Jirus kept slashing his weapon against the bear's think skin, his death knight powers seemed to be the only way he could defeat this angry beast.

With one swipe at the creature's eye, he'd thought that'll be it. The bear roared in agony as blood poured from the deep slash mark over the bear's eye. Incredibly, the bear continued to attack them, despite being blinded in one eye. Thinking desperately now to kill it, Jirus muttered some strange words barely heard by anyone else. Releasing a bolt of purple energy from his hand that hit the banks of the shore. Out from the ground from where the energy hit, a rather grim looking ghoul minion saw it's 'master' under attack, and immediately came in to attack the bear. To Jirus, Brale looked like he was about to pass out with the amount of rum he had been taking for his mana.

All of a sudden, the bear, with such incredible strength, attacked Jirus causing him to fall into the middle part of river, Jirus' ghoul though did stop the bear before it could do anymore damage to the gnome. When his ghoul seeming to keep the bear's attention on the shoreline, Jirus grabbed his sword, which he had dropped into the shallow river, and charged at the large bear. Just as he was about the strike the damn thing down, the creature suddenly turned its head to look at him. Jirus though didn't stop, even if it was charging itself at him!

"Just fucking die!" Jirus spat out angrily. With one heart stopping moment, Jirus struck his now slightly cracked weapon up its mouth, as it was about to have a bite at him.

The large bear let out a terrible roar of agony in its final moments. Right after Jirus pulled out his weapon from its large mouth, it only stood up weakly for a few seconds before falling onto its side into the river, with the blood now running down the river.

Jirus panted gently looking at the bear's corpse, before placing his sword in its holding package on his back. His ghoul and a stunned Brale walked forward, never minding at getting the lower parts of his robes wet, looking at the dead bear.

"You t-think we should…" Brale asked as he hiccupped, "take it back to the camp for the meal?"

Jirus just shook his head at the now drunken priest. "Not really, two things really. One, your dripping the last of your rum on it." Brale looked down and saw what he meant, he had accidently spilt the rum on the corpse. "I don't think either of us would want a bear tasting of rum for dinner, ok maybe Raer would…"

Jirus' ghoul tilted its head at him, waiting for what he was going to say next. "And the other thing is that this is not a normal bear, it's a Horde bear," he pointed at a barely visible Horde symbol on the bear's forehead, clearly showing that it must have been sent to kill them. "Anything Hordish is bound to leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth." He gave a small grin to the priest.

"…So we go out and look for something else?" hiccupped the human, still clearly tipsy.

Jirus nodded, rubbing a few specs of blood on his face. "Of course, we should split up though, the Horde sent this damn thing on us so we better split up to lose them." Jirus then turned to look at his ghoul minion. "Don't worry though, Spinesnapper here will keep you company."

Brale stared at him dumbstruck. "W-What? What about you?"

"I'll be fine, just tell ol' Spinesnapper what to do and he'll follow on." As he said this, the ghoul waddled up to the human, giving him a seemingly bemused look on its horrid face.

"What's with the name?" Asked Brale as he turned to leave him.

"What? Spinesnapper?" Asked the death knight as he headed up on to the bank of the river. "Just one of many death knight names we give to our ghouls," he brushed of a few bits of mud and blood on his guild tabard. "I could go on all day of the names I've giving to all of the ghouls I've had."

Brale didn't seem to listen to Jirus' words; instead he went on, with Spinesnapper, by his side. As they were not too far away from the camp, mount weren't needed so they would have to make the hunt on foot. As the human left the gnome by the shore, the death knight let out a small sigh and sat himself down on the ground.

"_I felt weak there," _Jirus thought. Ok, Jirus may have not been the best death knight in the world, but his weak performance on the bear was defiantly not like him. _"Was I expecting to be save from her?"_

The death knight just contented with himself thinking if what he thought was true or not. But to be honest with himself, he did need her, Nedia. He didn't really relies that he and Kogan would have been killed in that attack with those Horde solders yesterday had she'd not saved them. Jirus knew he couldn't keep in these feelings for her inside him forever, he needed to find a way to express his gratitude for her, but with what?

He groaned, placing his head in his hands, before looking around for inspiration. However, he did. Just up on a muddy section of grass to his right, was a set of flowers in the dirt. Normally Jirus hadn't anytime for flowers or anything, but he couldn't help but be somewhat surprised by this pair. Now sitting up, he walked over to the flowers. The flowers themselves were of a blue colour, which strangely seemed to remind him of being the same tone of blue that matched Nedia's long blue hair.

For some reason as well, he thought of himself as the dirt and Nedia as the flowers strangely enough. No matter how ideas Jirus could come up with the flowers, he grabbed the bundle of flowers there and set of back to the camp. If any of his former death knight comrades were there seeing him holding a bunch of flowers, no doubt that they would have been more than surprised to see him like that.

**XXX **

Thankfully for Jirus, no one saw him carrying the bundle of flowers in his hands right up to when he got to the camp. As he was expecting, Raer and Nedia were not arguing this time, but keeping their distance from each other, must have been though the aftermath of another argument. Jirus knew that he had to do something the break the silence, but he didn't to be seen with the flowers, so instead, he tucked them in his belt.

"Hey guys," Said Jirus casually, which did get their attention. "…Did I miss something?"

"None of your business," Raer snorted, clearly in a stroppy state from whatever Nedia and him were up to.

"Where's Brale?" Nedia interrupted.

"Don't worry, he's ok," Jirus replied. "He's got Spinesnapper with him."

Raer blinked at his dad. "Who the hell is Spinesnapper?"

"My ghoul minion."

"Where do you get all these names from, Dad?"

"Never mind that, want to do something useful?"

Raer looked over to the huntress, who was fixing a few things with her new staff that she found in one of the Horde troop bags that they fought yesterday. "Anything to get away from her."

"Well go out there and try and find something for us to eat." Jirus explained.

"But I thought that was—"

"Beat it."

Raer let out a nearly inaudible sigh as he walked away from the camp, with him muttering 'lazy sod' or something.

After the gnome warlock left the camp, Jirus turned his attention to the Night elf. "You ok?" Asked Jirus in a helpful tone.

"Yeah I'm ok," Nedia replied. "How can you stand that gnome?"

"Sometimes I wonder myself," the death knight muttered rolling his eyes. " I had to live with him for many years until he moved out."

Nedia let out a small giggle after what he said. The night elf's giggle made the hairs on his neck stand up. "But why'd you come back?"

The gnome rubbed the back of his head. "Well me and Brale were attacked from this bear, not anyway bear let me tell you, but one that was sent from the Horde on to us. To prove that, there was a small Horde symbol on its forehead."

Jirus then looked away from Nedia towards the forest. "I told him to split up, the Horde would want both of us killed so if we spread out, we could confuse them."

The huntress stared at him as he said this. "But…I came back for something for you." He felt nervous for what he was going to do.

"For me?" She asked.

"Yeah, for saving Kogan and my lives yesterday." And looking down to the ground, not wanting to see her face how she might react to what he was doing, he brought out the bunch of flowers from out of his belt and presented them to her. To him, everything slowed down at the moment. He didn't know what she was going to do next, but when she did, he had a shock.

One moment he was standing there, the next, he found himself close to her in a bone-crushing hug from her. _"Oh my…" _he thought in amazement.

"Thanks, Jirus." She smiled at him after Jirus pulled away from her, looking at each other. "I'll keep you safe."

"And I…erm," Jirus found himself struggling for words. "I'll do the same for you."

The huntress looked down at the flowers admiring them, while Jirus mounted on to his Turbostrider mount. "I'll be back before dusk," Jirus called at her as he left.

"Take care, Jirus," she called back, waving at him. Once he was out of sight, a strange thought entered her head. _"Did he really meant to give those as a thanks to me, or something else?" _

As she thought, she placed the flowers in her small bag. _"Could it be? No it can't…does he really care about me?" _ The night elf felt her heart flutter just about thinking about the death knight. Nedia then smiled at the thought, with the gnome seeming to be nicer to her than all the others in the group, the gnome was in love with her.

"_Maybe once this is all over…"_

**XXX **

By the time everyone else headed back to the camp, the sun had just gone down and nighttime would begin. Kogan and Goilir had returned from their investigation of the keep, with Goilir thinking how the hell he was going to blow up the wall with explosives, yep that was the plan. Brale had returned with a large chunky dead wolf; help of course by Jirus' minion, Spinesnapper. While everyone else had returned, someone was missing.

"Does anyone know where Jirus is?" Asked Nedia looking around her in case he turned up at that moment.

The rest of the gang looked around for the death knight. "Hope he's ok," Kogan muttered. Just as they all looked around, there came a mechanical noise heading their way, looking to were the sound was coming from, they saw Jirus' Turbostrider, clearly battered with oil marks all over it and weakly walking to them, but there was no Jirus on it.

They nearly all gasped when they knew what had happened. Jirus had been captured.

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**Uh oh! Cliffhanger! What has happened to Jirus, well if you review or favourite this story, we'll soon see. On another note, this is the longest of the chapters so far, hopefully the future chapters will be longer, I hope. Until next time, catch you later.**


	5. Revelation

**Well, here we go again, another chapter, and one being done quite quickly if I do say so myself and by far my least favorite one. Just trying to work this all out seemed make think more about using this chapter from Nedia's perspective, which before had been done from Jirus' if you were reading correctly to those nut cases out there. Originally, this part and the next chapter were going to be one which we would see what was happening to Jirus, but decided to keep the tension to make you, the reader, wonder what could happen to him, hoho, isn't I mean? This also gives us the chance to see Raer does not act as a dick the whole time and that he can be serious when needed. So without any more rubbish from me, here we go...(Even the title had me wondering what to call this part!) **

**EDIT: This chapter now has some added material to it and some fixed mumbo jumbo here and there, hopefully it has been improved a bit.**

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**Part 5**

**Revelation**

The whole group was beside themselves over what had happened to Jirus. Even as they sat around the campfire in the cave trying to warm them up for the cold night ahead, none of them felt any better, practically Nedia. None of them could come up with an idea to rescue him and try and defeat the Horde staying in the area, which was part of their original mission. The rather loudmouthed Raer was for once silent, but did have a dodgy smile beneath his cloth helm, though this was about something else he was thinking off and not his Father's situation.

The Night elf huntress's heart felt heavy at the thought of what might be happening to him at this very moment, even if they did rescue him, which did seem unlikely, what her fellow Night elves think about her being in a relationship with a gnome. There was nothing wrong of being with someone who was someone who was not from your race, the Horde had many of these relationships going on and she did knew of a half elf when she was younger. It was just that…the Night elves were pretty stubborn about these types of things. Though she did agree that Jirus wasn't the most handsome gnome in the world, and the fact that he was a death knight made the thought of them together rather strange. But he did have that gnomish charm like all gnomes had which she liked, so what made him different from the rest?

Those flowers he gave to her as a 'thank you' for saving his life, or was she just looking out for him anyway? She slightly blushed remember those azure blue flowers he gave her, she looked down at them tucked in her belt which she kept them safe, like a lucky charm. Though her expression changed as she shared the same looks with the others.

She sadly looked towards her wolf pet, Gorin. Whenever she felt like what she was now, she'd always ask him by speaking within their minds, common hunter ability it was. Now she needed her wolf pet the most to ask him what they could do.

"_Is it right for me to be with him?" _She thought spoke to Gorin.

"_If it's how you feel," _Her pet thought replied, _"then don't hide it. Love comes in all forms. True, that gnome may not be the ideal person, but I've noticed how he seems to soften for only you."_

Nedia stared at her pet in slight amazement. _"Only for me?" _She thought spoke to him, her heart skipping a beat.

"_Of course," _Gorin thought replied to her. _"The poor gnome has had quite a life when you think about it. Loosing his parents when Gnomeregan was abandoned, bad marriage, becoming a death knight, surely he deservers some happiness in his life, and you could be the one to help him."_

The Night elf huntress was taken aback from her wolf's thoughts. Looking away from the group to the outside of the cave, her thoughts drifted of how Jirus was doing at this very moment in time.

"_Please be ok…"_

Her thoughts though were interrupted by a certain Dwarf warrior's voice. The whole atmosphere in the cave felt like he hadn't spoken for an age, knowing how much he would talk a lot.

"Alright then," Kogan began, his voice clearly sounding like it had lost nearly all its confidence. "One thing is that we can't go in guns blazing considering how heavily guarded that place is."

"Then how then?" Goilir snapped. "We'd need a small army to try just to get through the wall, and after that, I don't know…" The dwarf hunter stroked his beard going into thought.

Brale on the other hand though, as Nedia could make out how he was feeling, was one who looked like he wanted to get this done with. Though this was just that he had been stuck with Jirus' ghoul minion, Spinesnapper. "…Do you think it might be guarded like damn heavy at this time?"

They all looked to the human priest, except for Raer for some reason, with an unimpressed look on their faces. "Of course it'll be guarded this time ya daft arse!" Kogan shouted at him. "The whole damn thing is guarded!"

"Not _that _heavy I'd say," Rear suddenly interrupted, while he took off his cloth helm. All eyes were soon on him.

For Nedia, this was the first time she saw Raer under the mask. She could see some of Jirus' features on him like his face structure and nose, but he also had messy jet back hair (which she thought by the look of it had had an electric shock) and dull purple eyes, no doubt Nedia thought that those must of come from his mother's.

"Well I've been in a similar situation once during my early days as a warlock."

The rest of them looked at each other wondering what he meant, when they did though, they all barraged him with so many questions of what to do that Raer had to fire a small fireball to the now larger campfire just to shut them up.

"Thank you," he said after they were silenced. "Now what happened was is that I was in this group with this overly patriotic human paladin. I nicked-named him 'Captain Stormwind' for what he thought he was like."

He scratched his forehead thinking about it before continuing. "Well what happened was is that we were outside Undercity, we were going there because 'Captain Stormwind' had chosen this spot to fight of this enemy of his which he had his own group with him. What type of dipstick uses the outside of a fucking Horde city for a little match?"

For some reason, Goilir's eyes turned to look at Kogan for some reason. "Now before we knew it, we're captured by these undead troops, which for some reason their leader reminded me a lot of my mother strangely enough." The gnome thought about it for a moment before continuing on. "We get locked up in this cages in this camp which I had no idea where we were. It was awful I remember, getting bread and water thrown at us like animals in cages. We were like that for about a night, which just by the god's own act of kindness, we were saved by strangely enough that group that our good-for-nothing leader led us out for to fight in the first place. Mind you, it was worth it how we all escaped and he was killed trying to stand up to those mucky-ass undead."

The rest of the group looked at him with confused looks on their faces. "Erm, nice story, Raer," Brale said. "But what does this have to do with Jirus?"

"If you let me finish I'll tell you, impatience fools." Raer sighed. "Well after we had been rescued by them, they explained that they before hand had was that one of them stole a prison guide that the Horde use."

"A Horde prison guide?" Nedia exclaimed, everyone else's reactions all told they same.

"Yeah, bet you weren't expecting that," the warlock replied, with a slight twinkle in his eyes. "They found out that they keep someone imprisoned for about a night or day, depending when you catch the person, after that…"

"What happens?" Asked Kogan.

"…Death," Raer spoke low, almost a whisper, that twinkle in his eyes had now gone.

The rest of the gang all was shocked. Nedia felt her blood turn cold, Kogan felt all the colour from his face turn to white, it looked like he was going to be sick to know how he was looking. Goilir just stared at Raer in disbelieve, surely the gnome was pulling their legs, though his rare serious face proved that he was telling the truth. Brale grabbed his guild tabard tightly. "What are we suppose to do then to rescue him before he is killed, and let's not mention try to get through that wall."

"We have to save him," Nedia spoke out. "Even if it does mean death, we have to try, he's part of us." The slender huntress seemed almost shocked by her own words, had she gone, she could of said her feelings to the group about Jirus. She knew that this wasn't the time to think about it.

"Your right," Raer replied to Nedia. "And I do have a plan worked out to get in and rescue Dad."

"Since when did you start making rescue plans," Goilir said in disbelieve. Raer was probably the most hated gnome in all of Azeroth as far as they were aware, but to see him for once act all serious about something looked almost unbelievable.

Nedia had wondered how Raer and Jirus were related due to their differences in personalities, but now that he was showing a side that seemed close to what Jirus was like seem to confirm that they were farther and son.

"Well it's like this," he began as they all leaned in closer to him to listen. "When I was coming back from hunting, I noticed that the guards on top of the wall left about six in the afternoon, leaving just two guards at the bottom for the rest of the day. If we can take them out, that's the wall cleared and we can enter."

His idea did seem plausible, but the gang had their doubts. "What happens when we go on the other side of the wall?" Kogan asked crossing his arms. "Do we come up against a thousand troops which wipe us in a insistence?"

"Not really," Raer corrected. "The only guards about will be all the sleepy bunch not caring about their work, and lets face it, if we kill them silently then we'll have this in the bag."

"…You really sure about that?" Nedia asked.

"I'd only do this if I thought if we could get out alive." Raer nodded, crossing his arms and having a smug look on his face. "But we'll have to wait for tomorrow, this needs all the planning we can do to take down the Horde, rescue Dad and get our reward after this."

The cave was silent; the only sound came from the rustling of the trees outside thanks to the wind. "Well then," Kogan sighed as he looked at the group. "I don't know if this is the right choice or not, but we're going for Raer's idea." While Nedia and Brale seemed glad that they had a plan to storm the keep, even if it meant the possibility of one of them, if not all of them, being killed. Goilir on the other hand, knowing how stupid Raer was all the time, seemed furious with Kogan's decision, he knew that he'd have to go along with them but the fact that Kogan had to go with Raer of all the people in the world.

Nonetheless, the group began to make plans for tomorrow night's raid. Main points were to take out the two front guards, sneak in, kill the guards that were sleeping around the place, rescue Jirus from wherever he was and finally, for Goilir that is, use some powerful explosive materials and place them among the beer kegs that would be in the keep's cellar and blow the place up. Well, that was the plan.

**XXX **

While the others had fallen asleep in the cave, an early sleep for the raid the next day that is, Nedia found herself walking around a moonlit glade not far from the cave. She couldn't sleep for worrying about the gnome's life and hoped that a small stroll around some untouched parts of Ashenvale (spots untouched by the Horde that is) to try and calm her senses. Who would've thought that a gnome death knight of all people would be the one for her? She did knew that her choice of lover was odd to say the least, but she did feel a connection with him, even if she didn't know if he had any feelings for her.

"Thinking about him?" Said a voice from behind.

Nedia nearly gasped upon hearing the voice and quickly turned round to see who it was. Much to her own surprise, it was none other that Raer.

"H-How did you know that?" Nedia asked walking slowly up to him.

Raer gave a little grin and tilted his head a bit. "…Just a lucky guess you can say."

The young Huntress knelt down to match the Warlock's height. "The truth is…" Nedia bit her bottom lip before continuing.

"You care for my Dad?" Raer asked raising an eyebrow.

Nedia's eyes widened a bit and a faint blush appeared on her face. "…Yes," she said softly, lowering her head.

Just then, the Gnome gave out a small laugh. "What's so funny?" The Night elf asked looking rather annoyed at this.

"Well, well, well," Raer smiled. "Never thought someone would care about my crackpot farther, but he does need a good woman in his life." He paused as he placed his small hand on her shoulder. "And you my dear seem to be the one for him."

Nedia eyed at him in wonder. "You mean, you don't—?"

"No, 'course not," Raer replied. "True I may seem like a good for nothing bastard Gnome to many, but I'm not all that let me tell you."

Nedia stood up looking down at the Gnome. "What'd you mean?"

The Gnome Warlock rubbed his hands together, with a small plan in his head. "Nedia, I'm going to help you get my Dad out of there and help you two lovebirds get together."

Nedia blushed again looking away and rubbed the back of her head. This Gnome was really starting to grow on her.

"But really dear," he continued, "We gotta get back to the cave, Horde forces will be sticking their noses up our asses if we stay around any longer out here." Raer had now started to walk back to the cave.

"Wait!" Nedia said stopping the gnome in his tracks.

"Yeah?" He asked turning round to look at her.

Nedia sighed a bit before starting. "Does the rest of the gang know, you know, about me and Jirus?"

"Oh no," Raer assured Nedia, "They have no idea what is going on with you two."

"Then how did you know?"

"…Just a guess," and with that, he walked back to the cave.

Nedia though decided to stay around for a bit. Looking around her, many happy memories came back of when she was a child, but they were not enough to lift the gloom from her sprits. She knelt herself down beside a moonlit glade well which looked like it hadn't seen any activity for quite sometime.

Looking in, she could see her reflection. She hadn't noticed that she looked like hell by the messy nature of her hair, all reminding her of Jirus' scruffy nature, _her _Jirus. Suddenly she gasped at what she saw in the water, low and behold, their was Jirus' own reflection, smiling. She touched the part of water where the Death Knight's own reflection was, though when she looked to her side where she thought Jirus was, he was gone. She sighed sadly at the thought of it. She really missed him, a part of her wanted to cry, but she felt to numb to even do it.

"_Hang on, Jirus." _She thought looking up to the moon. _"I'll save you, I promise you that."_

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**Apologize for this chapter being smaller than what I last said saying that the next chapter would big, just that I wanted to get this one out of the way. Next we will see how Jirus is doing and meeting the villain! You can't do a story without their being a baddie or an asshole at least! See you sometime soon!**


	6. Nowhere Left to Run

**It's ok guys, I'm alright, he's an update! Well this chapter was more fun to write than the last one, as our villain shows himself, hoho! Once again, next chapter won't be out for a while due to college again, and with it being BIG chapter, and I mean big, it may be a while for the next chapter. Oh well, this will do for now hopefully... **

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**Part 6 **

**Nowhere Left to Run**

_Jirus sighed to himself as he kept looking for anything for the gang's food supplies for the night, this being wild animals. He himself thought of himself to be rather lucky to have not been shot down in flames when he presented those good-for-nothing flowers he gave to Nedia. However, these thoughts had to be stopped when he found what he was looking for, a fresh, chunky looking wild wolf. Normally he would have used his ghoul minion for help, but because it was with Brale, which Jirus chuckled a bit of how awkward Brale must of looked with the ghoul following close behind._

_Even if Spinesnapper wasn't there, he didn't mind after all, he had used his many ghoul minions to help out others when he couldn't. _

_Now focusing again on what he was after, the wolf itself was only just about fifteen feet away from where he was standing; giving it the element of surprise was always the best thing that the gnome thought about usually. Quietly as possible, he dismounted from his Turbostrider, and planned his attack._

"Just use my Deathgrip to drag it over here and finish it off," _Jirus thought. Though just as he was about to use this ability, he heard a noise from nearby where he was standing. _

_Soon as he heard this, he grabbed hold of his weapon and turned himself around from where the sound was coming from. Nothing. Jirus knew that it was most definitely here, and most likely to strike him down. He hoped that it wasn't anymore of those damn Horde bears, that last beast had nearly killed him and Brale, even with a healer by his side. To put it bluntly, it had been a tough fight for the both of them. _

_His mount seemed edgy about what was going around it. Before he knew it, about five orc and troll guards came in from both sides of him, surprising the death knight by all accounts. _

_Even as he tried to fend the solders off, they kept attacking him relentlessly; Jirus was surprisingly no match for them. Even with there only being five guards fighting him, to a gnome, it was an overwhelming sight. Nevertheless, Jirus held up a valiant stand to them, even taking a troll down. Then he felt a great force from the butt of an axe from the side of his head, knocking him unconscious. All he could remember before everything went to black was the troops laughter for his fall, and strangely enough…Nedia's face. _

**XXX**

Jirus slowly awoke with great pain all over his small chubby body. He had no idea how long he had been knocked out for, or even what day it was. The first thing that he did felt was that his body was in great pain, while looking down at his body (His body had many battle scars, possibly from that ambush on him) as he lay on a stone bed, he noticed that all his amour, minus his plate trousers and boots, had gone. He rubbed his hand through his thick brown mullet pondering what he could do to get out of here.

The death knight also cursed himself for having no shirt on underneath, he had always promised himself to get himself one, but he'd always head off here or there.

Looking around at his surroundings, he noticed that he was in a small prison room that beyond the prison bars of his own cell he noticed another prison cell. There was nowhere left to run. As he sat up and walked over to the bars, his body was all stiff like mad, how long had he'd been in here for? Looking through the bars, up and down the long corridor were prison cells, similar like his.

While looking on the left hand side of the corridor, on his right, he heard the sound of plate trousers coming down towards him. Jirus looked over to his right to see two Horde guards, one was an orc the other a blood elf, heading towards his cell. Jirus took a few steps back as they unlocked his cell door. He would of attacked them had he known how heavily guarded the place he was in was.

Once the cell door opened, the orc guard went up to him and strapped on a waist strap on him round his waist with a long chain lead on it, presumably for him to stop him in case he took a runner. The blood elf guard then said something to him in the blood elf native tongue of Thalassian. Although Jirus had no idea what the guard was trying to tell him, he guessed that because he had been strapped like this, he must've meant that he was to follow him and the orc. Without him knowing anything else he started following the guards to wherever they were taking him.

An uneasy silence followed as the two guards led him down the corridor and in front of this door, which Jirus noticed for some reason they two guards seemed hesitant about approaching. The orc and the blood elf began muttering to each other of who was going to lead the way into the room, after the little debate, the orc opened the door and Jirus followed. The large room here was all dimly lit all around and the orc pulled Jirus over to this large, heavily armored orc, which Jirus presumed who was the leader of this place.

Giving him a small push to the ground, in many ways forced to kneel down at the larger orc, the orc guard said something to the leader orc in orcish before quickly sprinting to far end of the room, Jirus would of thought he could of made a runner, but he then noticed that he was held down by the blood elf (Jirus never really like those strange elves...)

Slowly, the orc general turned around to look at Jirus kneeling there. He stood about a few meters away from him standing in the shadows, concealing the orc's face, but showing his glowing mad red eyes. Though soon, the orc walked slowly forward out of the shadows which Jirus could see his whole face.

To say that this beast of an orc had seen and had been in many battles was all too true all over his scar-ridden face. One eyebrow on his left side of his face was drooping down nearly over his eye, how this orc must have still been fighting was all a wonder to Jirus.

The giant orc knelt down to match the gnome's height and spoke to him. "Greetings gnome," The orc said in a calm manner, though it did sound like he was only using this voice for the moment.

"Oh thanks," Jirus said sarcastically. "An orc that can speak common; thought I'd never see the day."

The general had a small chuckle at this and stood up again. "Of course, how else were we suppose to talk to you if you couldn't understand us."

"Never mind that," the death knight interrupted. "How long have I've been here and why are you guys here in Ashenvale? And who are you anyway?"

The orc general, who had his back turned to him at this point, paused for a moment and turned round to look at him again. "Very well then, gnome." He began walking over to a large map of Kalimdor, with the northern parts under red, on the other side of the room. "Seems that those Night elf allies of yours have told your king about the attacks on their land…more like _our _land. Warchief Garrosh personally sent me, General Harg to take on this raid of their territory for the Horde."

"What you on about?" Asked Jirus.

"Very simple." Began General Harg. "We first will take Ashenvale for the Horde and push the Night elf resistance back, then Felwood will be next for supplies and materials." Harg looked back at the gnome with a wicked grin on his lips. "Both will completely be under control of the Horde."

Jirus then let out a small chuckle. "You may take over Felwood as much as you like, but I hated that place when I first went there. Nothing of much interest there mind you."

"Oh you may think so," Harg said menacingly. "Felwood will be vital for our operations." He turned to look back on the map again pointing to the red parts on the map. "In a few months, or even weeks, _all _of Northern Kalimdor will belong strictly to the Horde. Any Alliance presence in any of those areas will be dealt with."

Harg then looked back at the death knight, who for some reason looked unimpressed by what the general had said. "Oh yeah?" snorted Jirus. "Like the Night elves would bowl over for you to take over their land like that simply."

"True indeed, death knight," Harg spoke back at him. "They won't stand a chance anyway having said that." Harg then looked over to the far west side of the map. "Once Northern Kalimdor is ours, another raid will happen…on the Night elf and Draenai homelands of Teldrassil and Azuremyst Isle."

At this point Jirus' eyes widened slightly, this was all leading a war with the Horde and the Alliance. _"That Warchief of theirs is an idiot!" _Jirus thought.

"Once this has happened," Harg continued. "The Draenai and the Night elves will flee to Stormwind, which they will feel desperate and confused for what will have happened."

If Jirus had even the tiniest bit of fighting strength left in him, he would have crushed that good-for-nothing orc's head. "…So where's this great 'army' then?" Jirus asked, his voice now starting to rise.

"Yesterday," Harg began walking towards the gnome with his arms behind his back. "About a squad of fifty troops were suppose to arrive at the this base for the next stage of the invasion plan…but only about twenty of them turned up."

"How?" Jirus asked again, this time his voice calm again.

"YOU ARE YOUR FOOLISH FRIENDS ARE TO BLAME!" Roared Harg causing Jirus and the Horde guard (Holding Jirus by the long chain lead) to flinch. The general then grabbed Jirus by his neck holding him up in the air to match his height. "You and your friends have ruined our current operations, and all we're left with is the small number of troops round this base. Alliance scum."

After this, Harg let go of Jirus and let him fall to the hard stone floor. He seemed to quieting down after his outburst. "But because we have one of you in our grasp, especially a gnome, this will provide some excellent entertainment for the troops here."

"What do you mean _'entertainment'?_" Jirus pouted.

"Well you do know that you gnomes are best known in the Horde for our sport 'Gnome punting' don't you know?"

"Oh yes I have heard of it…"

"Mmm, you, like all gnomes, are fairly smart."

"…Mind you, with you guys playing that, it clearly shows you have nothing better to do you cheap stakes."

Upon hearing this, Harg kicked the gnome death knight so violently in his face that Jirus nearly flew back a few feet. "…You really don't want to admit it now, do you?" Once again, the general kicked him again in the face, this time hitting the wall. The handfuls of Horde guards in the room were becoming more wary of their general's rising temper.

"Idiotic gnome!" Harg snapped. "Your hanging tonight will be a wonderful sight to see a gnome die a painful death."

"A hanging?" Jirus said, while whipping some blood away from his mouth. "Wow, you guys have such bad ideas for someone's death."

"Get him out of my sight!" As Harg commanded, the few Horde guards there led Jirus away from the room and back down to his prison cell. Once Jirus and the Guards turned round the corner in the corridor, the large orc general sat down again on his large chair letting out a long yet gruff sigh. _"Why would the gods make these 'things' in the first place for?" _ He thought to himself. _ "Oh, when the day comes when they are all—" _

"Hey boss!"

Harg groaned, as he knew whom that voice belonged to. Sibnick. Wearing a brown fedora hat and a matching brown adventure gear suit, the goblin rushed in with a rolled up piece of paper tied up with a black ribbon wrapped round.

"What is it you want?" Asked Harg looking at the goblin.

"Well have I got news for you!" Sibnick said in a confident manner, he was probably the only person in the base (unless you count Jirus with him being a prisoner) that had the confidence to stand up to the general.

"Shut up and tell me," Harg sighed.

"Well I'm not to sure myself, but we got this letter from Garrosh himself, personally. What-?"

Before the goblin could say anything out of his big mouth, Harg grabbed the letter out of Sibnick's hands and unraveled the letter. "Was it something you want, sir?"

"Indeed it was," replied the orc as he opened up the sheet of paper. "After the loss of our troops yesterday, I ordered for more troops from Garrosh."

Sibnick looked on impressively, though had his own doubts if Garrosh would approve of them. His thoughts did turn out to be true surprisingly as Harg's face fell after he read that letter. For Harg, things hadn't turned out as he hoped for. On it, it read:

_Dear General Harg Deadeye, _

_With your request, it informs me to say that in the wake of the fresh set of troops I sent for you who most died on the battlefield; I will __**not **__supply you with a new amount of troops. We cannot loose any more troops like that if a sudden war with the Alliance starts. _

_As punishment for your failure for what has happened, the troops who you currently have will have to be used for the conquest of Ashenvale and Felwood. _

_You have let this all down on yourself. _

_Yours, _

_Garrosh Hellscream. _

After reading the letter, Harg ripped the letter up and threw the pieces at the goblin. "Bastard!" Shouted Harg slamming his fists on the table, causing Sibnick to jump back slightly.

"What'd he say?" Asked Sibnick, brushing of his jacket.

"Garrosh has denied us with anymore reinforcements as that lot who came in were our last from him. We'll have to take this conquest on with what we have."

"You kiddin'?" Gasped Sibnick. "With what we've got we'd all be nothing against—"

"We have no choice," Harg interrupted. "We just should make it against the Night elf forces." There was a long silence in the room for a good few seconds. Only the goblin decided to break the silence.

"So when is that gnome getting hanged then?"

"Tonight around nine," replied Harg. "I expect that…" Harg then noticed the goblin have a thoughtful expression on his face whilst rubbing his hands. "What are you smiling at?"

"Oh yeah," Sibnick chuckled lightly. "That Blood elf chick is comin' round for the occasion soon." Harg rolled his eyes; the Blood elf who the goblin was talking about was an ambassador for Silvermoon, Pudia Windrider. Harg and Pudia had been friends for a while, though since Sibnick came to meet her, he just would start hitting on the elf whenever he was free, this of course annoyed the elf and Harg; because of this, their friendship was becoming more and more strain thanks to that stupid goblin.

"Why is she coming?" Harg asked.

"Oh, my girlfriend wants something with the gnome and will pay me a lot if a deal comes through." He rubbed his hands in glee like a young child.

"She is **not **_your _girlfriend,' Harg groaned covering his face with his hand.

"Well she might be someday." Sibnick started thinking about the thought of it. "Damn she has a nice ass you have to admit…"

"Get out," Harg snapped, causing the goblin to break out of his daydreaming thoughts.

"Alright, alright!" Sibnick replied walking out of the room with his hands in his pockets. _"Why do I get stuck with that jerk?" _He thought. _"But wait, what will a gnome death knight cost? Hope to hell he is worth a lot, otherwise if I don't pay of my tax for my house…shit!" _

While thinking of it, Sibnick walked away from Harg's office to the mount stables where Pudia was to come in on her flying mount.

**XXX **

"You could have been a bit—Hey!"

Jirus was thrown back into his face hitting the floor face first. The orc and blood elf guards laughed at the gnome before locking the cell door and promptly walked away. Jirus once again looked around at his cell. It wasn't the type of way he wanted to die; he would of preferred dying on a battlefield against the Horde.

The messed up looking gnome weakly stood up and looked at a small window above him. By the look of the fading daylight, it would be nighttime soon. In his lifetime, he had been out through hell, now tonight it would all end. Despite this, he did held on to that tiny ray of hope, but he knew it would be all but a dream…to see her again. Nedia.

He shook his head sadly; she didn't deserve him. He wasn't the best death knight in the world he knew for a start, but the fact that she had saved his own life proved that he was weak for her. She would be better suited for a better person for her; he was just a scruffy gnome who was a bloody death knight.

"Oh well," Jirus said to himself quietly. "The thoughts were fun when they lasted." If he did get out somehow and survived, he wouldn't mind to go back to the heartless death knight as he always was, just would have been nice if…

* * *

**Poor Jirus, feels heartbroken, just because I'm such a jerk to him, hehe. What I can tell you is that the next chapter will have death in it...will Nedia save Jirus and confess their love...how the hell should I know? I'm writing this...wait, uhm, until next time, catch you again, and bring along some popcorn as we're getting near the end now, YAY! **


	7. Storming the Keep

**Oh thank the great Blizzard Gods! We're near the end now! Wow, this chapter is the longest thing I have written to date and I'm bloody well proud of it, even if if may have one or two mistakes. Nevertheless, this'll be a fun part to read, so grabbed some food and some drinks, sit on your computer chair and pipe down, 'cause here we roll...gee, that sounded corny or what, eh? **

* * *

**Part 7**

**Storming the Keep**

As the day went on, Jirus' planned hanging for about half past six was put on hold. The reason being is that due to an unexpected downpour of heavy rain, which lasted until it was all night at sometime round eight. However, for one Goblin, this was all he needed for late arrival of a certain Blood elf. Had the sentence gone on and Jirus had been hung to his death at that point, Sibnick's deal with that elf, which she had something in mind for the gnome, would of crashed down in flames.

Sitting on a bundle of hay, with a Troll guard sitting beside him listening to the Goblin's little misadventures, was Sibnick waiting for that Blood elf who was to arrive into the base on her flying mount. "…And so I'm stuck in this room filled with all these naked chicks lookin' at me if they were gonna' kill me—"

"I'd 'tink I'd get da idea, mon," interrupted the Troll guard, who now was bored out of his head by Sibnick's so called 'tales'.

"Hey! It's true!" Remarked the goblin. "I was nearly a dead man that day!"

The Troll was about to say something to Sibnick until he noticed something up in the air behind the Goblin. As Sibnick looked behind him, low-and-behold coming in on a red Drake, was that Blood elf they had been waiting for, Pudia Windrider. Some of the other mounts in the area scattered a bit as the Drake came in to land, once the Drake did land, Pudia unmounted from it gracefully and turned to look at the pair.

Pudia was, like all Blood elves woman, very beautiful. With her perfect slim figure and her long golden blonde hair, it was probably no reason to wonder why Sibnick had fallen for her; even the Troll was eying the elf up and down (It can be said that some Troll males have a thing for Blood elf woman, but that's another story…)

"Well, is that Gnome still alive?" Asked Pudia as she walked up to the (excited!) pair.

"'Course, babe," Replied the goblin. "I had the whole ceremony held back 'till you came round."

"No you—" The Troll tried to correct Sibnick, but felt a brief little punch to the lower part of his chest as a gesture to 'shut up' by the Goblin.

The Blood elf looked at the Goblin with that haughty expression that all Elves have. "This Gnome better be what you say and worth it," Pudia said with a serious tone in her voice.

"No need to worry, toot's," Sibnick remarked with a large grin on his face.

"And you better stop calling me _that!_" Snapped Pudia with her arms now crossed.

Sibnick sighed. "Ok, ok." He then looked up at the Troll guard, who by the looks of things from Sibnick's point of view wanted that elf for himself. "Hey lanky!"

"W-What?" The Troll spluttered coming out of his little thoughts.

"Tell the boss that she's come and that we can start the damn thing." With those words said, the Troll guard walked out of the stable grumbling to himself of how lucky that Goblin was, though in fact the elf **wasn't **his girlfriend of any sorts.

With the Guard out of sight, Sibnick looked up at the Blood elf. "Well then, shall I take your hand then?"

"I can managed myself thank you very much," replied the snobby Blood elf that now started walking away from Sibnick.

"Hey babe, wait!" Cried out Sibnick running up to her. "At least let me guide you in."

**XXX**

While the bad weather earlier on may have delayed the hanging event, this did prove to be what a certain gang of rescuers needed to save their friend. In this time, they had mended their armour and weapons to the fullest to make sure they had everything ready to stand against the Might of whatever might have been in that base before them.

For Nedia, this was the first time she had actually seen the base for herself and her only thoughts were how Jirus was feeling in there. Although Kogan was leading this rescue operation into the base the whole idea itself was started of by Raer, the last person in the world who you could think could plan something this complex.

Even if this mission was to be her death, she would do all she could just to see Jirus once more, the group themselves were of course oblivious to her feelings for the Gnome, but so were they for Jirus' feelings for her. But at this moment, Nedia needed ton concentrate for what was going to happen here.

As part of the first part of their rescue operation was to take out the guards on the main gate outside. Just as Raer had said, only two guards remained, the rest that should have been on top of the battlements were not there.

"Ok guys?" whispered Kogan to the rest, which they were all hiding in a thick set of bushes.

"I'm ready," replied Nedia pulling out two arrows from her arrow bag.

"Ready for nothing," Raer also replied, giving Goilir and quick tap on his shoulder, which he nodded at them in response.

Everyone else turned to Brale, who had a wooden box of mana drinks at the ready (which were filled with rum) "Always as ever," Brale smiled to them. Kogan then whispered to Nedia.

"Ok…Nedia, get ready to—"

"Hang on," interrupted Raer. "I have an idea. Nedia just shoot at them when they get close." The Gnome warlock then escaped out of the bushes, much to the shock of his fellow teammates who tried to pull him back before he could give away his position.

While this had been happening, the two guards at the gate, an Orc and a Tauren, had been talking to each other.

"Shame we can't watch that Gnome get hanged," sighed the Orc to his Tauren guard companion.

"Though we may lose out on that," Replied the Tauren. "The boss said someone has to keep watch on the outside remember. Besides, there are many other Gnomes in Azeroth to punt on."

The Orc chuckled at those words. "That's true, something to…" He paused when he saw what was up ahead from them. Standing there was a Gnome warlock, who making rude gestures at them.

The stunned pair looked at other, both muttering 'speak of the devil'. "Shall we?" Asked the Tauren.

"Of course then," smiled the Orc. The two of them took charge at the Gnome who for some reason didn't seem too scared of their attack on him. The Gnome then made a small wave to something behind the guards. Then before either of the two guards knew it, two flying arrows striking them in the back of their heads.

The Two guards fell down just a few feet away from the warlock's feet. Bullseye.

From giving a quick thumbs up to a thick bush, Raer's fellow group members came out, all with unimpressed looks on their faces. "Don't even try something like _that_ again!" Snapped Kogan.

"Hey, hey!" Remarked Raer waving his hands at them to try and calm them down. "At least we got 'em."

"Never mind that," sighed Nedia. "Let's get on with this." The rest of the group were all too happy to do the same thing. So without any more hesitation from them, they headed through the giant gateway and into the base…

**XXX**

Finally, the event could now start.

The inside of the courtyard was filled to the brim of Horde troops all cramp together around a makeshift-hanging platform. Some Troops were looking down from above through some of the archways, while down below, some of the smaller races, mostly Goblins, were sitting on the shoulders of the taller races to try and get a better look.

Up from above from the courtyard in a corridor which a door led onto a balcony, an Orc, a Blood elf and a Goblin were getting ready to watch the event.

"It's amazing to think how a Gnome's hanging to can attract so many to come and watch." Said Harg as he looked around the packed Courtyard through a small window. "And by the way", he added turning to look at Sibnick. "How is that Gnome doing?"

Sibnick, who had been trying yet again to flirt with Pudia, turned to look at Orc General. "He was a bit, you know, stand off-ish," he began, "but we had to get in more guards to make sure he wouldn't break out. But it's ok now, should be here soon."

Just then, a rather flushed looking Blood elf male guard came running in before saluting Harg. "Sir, the prisoner is ready."

"Excellent," smiled Harg. "Bring him out and we can start the event."

"Yes, sir," The Blood elf nodded before taking chase down the corridor. The remaining three in the corridor prepared themselves before heading out on to the Balcony. "This Gnome better be what you say," Pudia said to the Goblin.

"Of course he will," Sibnick smiled. "When have I ever let you down?"

"Occasionally," Pudia muttered.

Once the trio made it on to the balcony, the audience cheered at their general looking down at them, which may have been forcing them to clap at him, if they never then who knows what may of happened…

The audience continued to cheer away for about thirty seconds before it died away. "Bring out the Gnome!" Boomed Harg as the audience's cheering stopped. From under the balcony, a large door opened up with four guards holding Jirus with robes tied around him.

Those who were close to the Gnome began shouting out cure words to the Gnome in their native tongues. Some chucked pieces of rotten fruit at him while those looking down from above started spitting on him. The rest of the crowd were howling cheerfully for what they were hoping to see.

"Well that's him," said Sibnick to Pudia. "That's the gnome, babe."

The Blood elf eyed the Gnome as he was led up to the platform by the guards. "A Gnome death knight?" She gasped. Sibnick couldn't tell if she was shocked that he had found a death knight or that that she was shocked of how horrid it looked. He just hoped he'd get a fair amount of gold from her.

Just before the Gnome had been led out into the courtyard, a few Horde Guards were all lying around in a corridor…dead. This was of course by the gang of rescuers infiltrating the Keep. The guard's deaths had all been swiftly and silently thanks to Nedia and her bagful of Arrows, had they had used Goilir's bullet shells then it's fair to say they would of gave away their position.

"Over there," Raer said to them in a low voice pointing to an open window that looked down on the courtyard below. Raer and the two Dwarfs may have been too small to look, though Kogan however had a plan.

"Nedia, what's going on down there?" The Dwarf warrior asked. The Night elf huntress carefully through the archway-window-frame to make sure they wouldn't get spotted.

"What do you see?" Asked Brale.

"It's a courtyard filled with Horde troops…" Nedia reported. "…And there's a hanging platform in the middle, wait, something's happening." A large amount of cheering and clapping could be heard from out in the courtyard.

"What's all the cheering?" Asked Raer.

"There's an Orc, a Goblin and a Blood elf walking on to a balcony, the Orc must be the leader I guess." The cheering went on for sometime, after they'd stopped, the Orc spoke something in Orcish to them, of course none of the gang knew any Horde language.

"There is a gate opening up now—It's Jirus!" She almost cried out that last part which she covered her hand with mouth.

"Jirus?" The rest of them said almost at once. "What's he like?" Asked Raer again, which now the gang were trying to catch a good look at what was going on. Brale though was one of the two taller ones so budge Nedia slightly a bit to see the spectacle unfold.

"He's half naked with only his trousers and boots on," Brale reported to them. He then noticed that the guards were leading the Gnome up on to the hanging platform.

"Great gods," Brale gasped taking a step back. "They're gonna hang him!"

The gang slightly gasped thought they were all in shock at what they heard. Goilir and Raer starting looking round the room in a desperate attempt to find some inspiration while Nedia was on the verge of firing another arrow down into the courtyard. "Nedia hold it!" Kogan ordered. "I have an idea."

"What's that then?" the huntress asked through gritted teeth still aiming down below.

"Nedia and Goilir, you guys cover the area up here," Kogan replied. "Me, Brale and Raer will go down into the courtyard and start our attack."

"Us against them?" Brale gasped. "We'll be up the creek then."

"And when do you guys start your attack?" Added Goilir.

"Just when the trap door opens, Nedia fires her arrow just at the right moment so the arrow can cut through the rope." Explained Kogan. "It should surprise them at that point when we then attack when they least expect it."

Once the rest of the group gave a nervous nod, Raer, Kogan, Brale and Spinesnapper (Jirus minion who was under Brale's care while Jirus was 'away') headed on down for their raid on the keep.

**XXX**

Over on the other side on a balcony, Pudia had made her choice for what she wanted with the Gnome.

"House service?" Asked a surprised Sibnick.

"Of course," replied Pudia. "Gnomes are perfect to control for these purposes, maybe the only thing their ever good for." She looked down now at Jirus getting the rope wrapped round his neck. "And if you release him, I'll pay you one hundred gold."

"Look toot's," replied Sibnick. "I'd only pay one hundred gold just to watch this guy hang."

"Two-hundred gold!"

"Nope…" While any Goblin would of gone for any amount of money, he was only doing this to try and use the highest amount of money possible to pay of his debts back home.

Down on the platform below, the Orc guard had finished tying the rope around Jirus' neck, to Jirus; the Orc's breath was horrendous.

"Any last requests, Gnome?" Cackled the Orc in badly spoken common.

"Yeah, loosen the knot and let me go," remarked Jirus. Now anyone would of ignored his type of request and carried on, but this Orc wasn't, to be honest, not that smart.

Looking up on the balcony, He shouted up to Harg about the request. With the amount of shouting going on from the crowd would have been impossible to hear, but Harg just heard the words from the Orc below. And the look on his face really said it all.

"You moron!" He cried out from the balcony. "Of course don't let him go!"

The Orc on the platform then slapped the back of Jirus' head for wasting his time.

"Nine-hundred gold!" Came the sound of Pudia's voice.

"Nope not—Wait that much?" Sibnick's gaze looked at Pudia again, with an evil smirk on his lips. "You know what, we might have a deal there." He then spoke in a lusty voice to her. "Of course…" He slowly placed his hand on her firm sharply curved ass. "I'm a _very _lonely guy."

When she felt his hand on her ass, she slapped him hard on the face. The crowd below, who had been looking up at them, laughed hard at Sibnick's misfortune as he held his now redden right check.

"Enough of your lip!" Snapped Harg. "Begin!"

Back on the other side, Nedia was just about to fire at that moment when all of a sudden, the string on her bow broke. Her blood ran cold very quickly at that moment and she desperately tried to tie the bow back in place, thankfully, the top part had come off. Just as she had almost fixed it, she was too late...

The trap door opened up and with it, Jirus. The crowd's cheering had gotten so loud at that point that Nedia's cries of 'No!' were drowned out.

Once the quick dropped, everyone expected Jirus' body to be hanging there lifeless. Not a pin drop could be heard. Then everyone could see his little legs moving trying to get out.

"…His neck did not break!" Cried out Sibnick.

While the crowd angrily ran forward at the hanging Gnome, the guards who were keeping an eye out on things had to push them back. Nedia though had just finished fixing the loose piece of string and was now waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Harg groaned to himself. "Must I do everything myself round here?" He muttered to Sibnick and Pudia as he left them grabbing his axe and heading off downstairs to finish it off.

Pudia looked down at the now angry Goblin. "What about our deal?" She begged.

"Sorry," the greedy Goblin replied rubbing his slapped cheek. "Deal's off."

Behind a large archway which led to the courtyard, three motley members stood waiting for there moment to strike out, though so far it hadn't gone to plan as they hoped so. "Come on, Nedia," said Raer with an annoyed tone. "Just fire the bloody arrow to send us off!"

By now, the crowd had all started to chant 'Kill! Kill!' out as Harg came into the courtyard holding his giant gleaming battle-axe. Nedia could only gasp at how large the general was, being twice the height of a normal Orc, the thought of fighting him made her shudder in fear, but she had to concentrate on firing off her arrow at the right moment.

The chanting began to get more louder as Harg walked ever close to Jirus, who now was starting to choke to death now. With Jirus being suspended in midair, he matched Harg's height. "Farewell, death knight." With that, he raised his axe just to slice him in half. Then he let his axe come down, with Jirus with it, thought he was not injured from it. The rope had snapped and many of the people watching thought that Harg had cut the rope by mistake, though a certain few saw an arrow that had struck into the ground which was one of Night elf design...

This was the moment to strike.

Before any Horde person knew, a certain Dwarf warrior came charging in and proceeded to use his 'Whirlwind' attack on the now attack Horde. Shortly after, Raer came in using showers of fire to rain down all over them along with Brale healing franticly like there was no tomorrow.

"Kill them!" Roared Harg as every troop there on command charged on his words. Harg would have to run back into his main room to put on his heavy plate armour (which right now he was wearing light leather armour.)

Up near the top, two hunters kept on firing on down in the courtyard or anyone else coming into the room they were in.

While finally down in the courtyard, lying on the ground, was a now battered Gnome death knight, Jirus. As he looked up at Nedia firing down, for a brief moment, she gave him a small wink before counting what she was doing. Jirus had to roll out of the way before a body from an undead fell next to him.

Jirus slowly stood up, the pain in his neck was horrific and it felt like he hadn't stood up in ages. "Alright, Dad?" Came a voice from behind. Looking behind, there with a slightly ripped robe, was Raer and Spinesnapper (No doubt happy to be reunited with its master.)

"Guess you needed some help, so we popped over to say hello." He said this with a humorous tone, though now was not the time for that.

"We need to find my armour," Jirus replied, as he looked over to the doorway that he came in. "Care to help?"

"Of course," smiled Raer as he handed Jirus over an axe from the undead corpse at their feet. And with, the farther and son team headed in to find Jirus' armour, and to take out Harg.

While this had been happening, Nedia hadn't noticed that Jirus had gone off and when she did noticed, her first thoughts that he had been captured yet again and who knows what was happening to him.

"Goilir!" Nedia called over to the Dwarf hunter firing away at various enemies coming at them.

Goilir could barely hear though what she was trying to say to him due to loud bangs of gunfire from his musket. "What you saying?"

"I've got to find Jirus!" She cried out again at him, which she narrowly nearly being sliced in two due to a large axe.

"You mad or something?" Replied a stunned Goilir. "You'll get killed down there! Not to mention that I'd have no chance on my own here!" Just as finished that sentence, a large group of Horde troops came charging at him, which his pet wolf started out to attack them.

Then with a barrage of 'Multi-shot' arrows from Nedia, the arrows hit the guards in the face. Killing them intently. "…I'll be ok, Dwarf." Nedia smiled at him as she ran off down the stairs to the courtyard. The Dwarf hunter never needed any more encouragement.

**XXX**

While the raid was taking place, Pudia had in the midst of all this ran back to the stables to escape on her flying mount, with Sibnick chasing her close behind. "Hey baby wait up!" Cried Sibnick, she now at this point just mounted onto her large red Drake.

"I don't wanna die here! I wanna be with you! Come back!" No matter how much he said this, Pudia took off on her mount leaving Sibnick standing there completely stunned. The Goblin now had a dilemma, how was he supposed to get out?

There were no other flying mounts he could use to get out, the rest were all ground based mounts. Sibnick looked around the stables for some inspiration to get out, and then he had an idea, though a risky one to say the least. He'd have to run out of the Keep, with his sack filled with money that he had. _"It's never easy, isn't it?" _He thought grudgingly as he began his little escape.

In the courtyard, Kogan and Brale held their ground firmly as they kept advancing further into the Keep, by now they had just gotten inside Keep. Though they had surprisingly taking out a good few guards, many more still remained to attack them and Brale had nearly used up all the drinks for his mana.

"How long do we keep this up for?" Asked Brale loudly as he kept healing Kogan like there was no tomorrow.

"Once we find their leader!" Replied Kogan as he finished off a Tauren by stabbing it though it's stomach. "I think we're nearly there anyway."

Before Brale could say anything else, Brale felt a great pain in his right arm. He screamed and in pain at this and get did catch Kogan of guard wondering what was going on. Brale tried to heal himself, but he was now finally out of mana. His vision began to get duller and duller as he fell to his knees.

Even as Kogan cried out his name, Brale knew his time had come, then, he fell sideways to the fall. Dead. Kogan was shocked to see how Brale had been brought down with a simple arrow through his arm, that was until he could see a strange green acid like substance that had been on the arrow head which now was turning the wounded arm a slight green. It could have been only one thing. Poison.

Just as the Dwarf looked up after he examined Brale's corpse, using his shield, another poisoned arrow fired at him though his own (now fairy battered) shield saved him. Without him knowing who or what the enemy was, he charged lowering his shield. Now seeing whom the enemy was, it was a Troll archer, who continued to fire arrow after arrow to stop Kogan. Though the Troll's efforts could do nothing to stop him.

With a roar of fury, Kogan sliced the Troll upwards causing nearly one side of his body to come clean right off. Blood from this Troll went everywhere in the room. After an uneasy period of silence, Kogan looked back towards the body of Brale. Without a healer, they'd probably be doomed to fail and that this raid would be a disaster. He could only now rely on the handful of healing potions that he had in his bag pack.

"…Sorry, friend," Kogan sighed at the dead body before running down the corridor to find the rest of the gang.

**XXX**

Elsewhere in the Keep, the farther and son team of Jirus and Raer were approaching now the block of prison cells, which Jirus had been kept in previously. With no upper armour for himself, Jirus had various scars of battle marked all round his body and face and his ghoul was now really weak from the fights they had to endure. And they hadn't even found the storeroom that Jirus claimed to be where the armour of his was.

Raer casted another set of fireballs at a set of Blood elf guards while trying to keep his Dad's back. "Where is the bloody room?" Raer moaned as they had been going round in circles by now. The fireballs also hit a wooden door to the side that had now caught fire. "Could this be it, Dad?"

Jirus looked over to see what Raer was on about. "Only one way to find out." The Gnome death knight, without worrying about getting any burns, broke through the now burnt and weakened wooden door. The room itself was, to put it bluntly, a cupboard with various boxes all round the room.

"Great," Jirus muttered as Raer and Spinesnapper followed in. "They just _had _to put so many boxes in this room now, didn't they?"

Raer slightly chuckled at hearing his Dad's words but nevertheless helped out trying to find the box that had the armour in it, he knew for a start his Dad wouldn't take too kindly to buying a new set of armour as he was quite a cheapskate.

With Jirus looking all around the many boxes in here, the best Raer could do was help him out. Then he noticed a box that caught his eye, which had a loose lock on it and something heavy inside as he tried to move it. Opening it, there was all of Jirus' armour and Sword in that box.

"Hey, Dad!" He called over to Jirus. "Is this is it?" Without wasting anytime, the older Gnome took out all the stuff in the box and began dressing himself back into his usual choice for clothes wear.

Whilst Raer watched Jirus fitting himself into his armour, there was one thought that he couldn't stop thinking about. And now, he couldn't keep it in him much longer from his farther.

"…Dad?" He asked finally.

"Yeah?" Jirus replied as he placed on his shoulder pads. "What do you ask?"

"…Do you… care about Nedia?"

Jirus stopped dead of what he was doing never turned to look at his son, which he had his back on him. The death knight let out a small sigh before slowly looking back at his son. "I guess you guys were all going to find out eventually how I feel about her." Raer rubbed his chin in thought. "However, how'd you figure out about my feelings?"

"Pretty obvious to me it was," grinned Raer. "Just that you seemed to loosen up when she was around and that you seemed to make me think that you had a thing for her." The older Gnome just shook his head sadly and sat on one of the smaller crates in the room. "Wait, what's the matter?"

"I'm no good for her," Jirus said sadly looking down at the floor.

"H-How?"

"I'm too weak for her. She saved my life during that little Horde skirmish and now is trying to save me from here." Jirus then glanced over at a slightly stunned Raer. "She deserves a better man for me, besides, I'm a Gnome, and not just that…a Gnome death knight! How could it work out?"

Normally Raer would've come up with some strange thought that have nothing to do with the situation, but because his Dad was in a slight state of depression, he had to really think of what to say.

"…That doesn't matter, Dad," Raer smiled as he placed his hand on Jirus' shoulder. "If you've found someone who you'll be happy with, then go for it. Maybe while we battle in this Keep to get out then you could be fighting for her."

Jirus was completely taken aback from his son's words. This was not the Raer he was use to, but in these words, for once, Raer was right. Inside him seemed to fill up with all sorts of possibilities and great confidence that was needed for this moment.

Now standing up and smiling as he placed on his plated helm, he turned to look at his son grabbing his two-handed sword. "…For the Alliance, Raer."

"That's the way to do it!" And with that, they ran out of the room to continue the mission.

**XXX**

Not far from the Gnome duo, Nedia had been franticly hunting up and down the base looking for any sign of Jirus. _"Do you think he is alright?" _She thought spoke to her pet wolf, Gorin.

"_He's a smart Gnome," _the wolf thought replied. _"I'm sure we'll find him soon."_

The Night elf huntress then almost gasped at running into room just nearby them, the Orc general. Thankfully, the general didn't notice them as she ran into the room. Nevertheless, this Orc was just what Nedia wanted to know about Jirus' whereabouts, and if he didn't go along with the Huntress, Nedia would take care of that.

Bursting into the room with a bow and arrow at the ready and Gorin ready to attack, she aimed at the giant Orc. Strangely, this Orc didn't flinch when she burst into the room, almost like he had been expecting her. The Orc slowly turned round to look at her with an expressionless face on her. By now of course, he had now equipped himself with thick, black, plated armour.

"Where is he?" Nedia hissed at him, completely different from her sort of naïve personality.

"Who…?" Asked the Orc in a rough yet polite manner.

"The Gnome," she replied back angrily. "Where is he?"

Harg then raised an eyebrow at this then gave a small chuckle. "Well, well, well. A Night elf in love with a Gnome, and not just any Gnome, a Gnome death knight, now I have seen everything."

Nedia kept a firm hold on her bow as she looked like she was about to release the arrow. "Your time is running, Orc." She hadn't noticed two heavily armoured archers (Two of them were Trolls.)

"So is yours, Night elf," Harg chuckled. "So is yours…" Giving out a small wave to the two troops behind her, they fired very thick arrows at her. Nedia didn't have enough time to react to them, though her pet…

Just as the arrows were about to strike her down, Gorin leapt up in the path of the oncoming arrows to protect her and instead was struck down instead. "Gorin!" She cried as she saw her precious wolf pet lying now in a pool of Blood, though was barely shaking just proven that the wolf was still living…not for long though.

"_Be happy…with that Gnome."_ Gorin thought spoke to her, before the wolf finally stopped breathing. Silence followed in that room as she knelt there cradling her dead pet, that pet of hers had been with her since her early days as a Huntress, and to see Gorin now dead made her feel numb inside.

'Pity," Harg spoke out. "He did seem to be a rather a decent pet if I do say so myself." Nedia slowly stood up, with pure rage in her eyes at the giant Orc. It wasn't until she noticed that she was now trapped in that room between Harg and the two other guards.

She was all by herself, no help from anyone else, Just herself.

Very close by, Jirus, Raer and Spinesnapper raced down the corridor in order to find the rest of the gang. "Look!" Said Jirus as he pointed out towards Nedia desperately holding her ground in that room against two bigger opponents. Jirus then felt a great wave of confidence enter him as he pulled out his two-handed sword.

"What about him then?" asked Raer suddenly as Jirus turned round to see him pointing at a Goblin carrying a large sack of something running away on the other side of the corridor.

Raer gave Jirus a small grin. "Shall I?"

"Ok," Replied Jirus with a small smile. "You take him, I'll get Nedia." And after Jirus said that, Raer took chase after the Goblin.

"_Fighting a Goblin," _Raer thought drinking a small mana drink. _"Now this'll be fun." _

In the room across from them, Nedia was taking a hard beating. She may have been a decent fighter, but without her pet, she was only half of that. Strangely enough though, the large cuts on her face did seem to go with her Night elf markings.

Over and over with relentless attacks from Harg and his backing troops, Nedia couldn't handle more of this from what she was getting. Her staff had by now snapped and she was completely defenceless.

A final strike from Harg brought her down crashing to the floor causing some of her now damaged mail armour to finally crack. The other two guards were about to finish her off until Harg raised his hand to stop them, which they did on command.

"Ah…Hunters," Harg remarked readying his Giant axe to give Nedia the final blow. "They were always useless as I remember in my early days. So it will be great pleasure to put you out of your misery."

Nedia didn't have the strength to even look up. All she could see then was her whole life flashing before her, was this death perhaps a punishment from some strange force to her that she couldn't have feelings for a Gnome?

"I wouldn't even do that if I were you."

The new voice in the room caught all their attention, as they turned round to see who it was. To Nedia's amazement, it was Jirus. Standing in the doorway with his sword in one hand, Spinesnapper by his side and a manic smile on, Jirus had saved Nedia at that moment.

"Shall we finish this off?" Asked Jirus jokily at Harg

"Well of course, Alliance scum!" With a powerful charge at the death knight, Jirus began to battle for himself and her.

**XXX**

While everyone else had been fighting away, Goilir had finished of his attacks on his enemies and now was placing the explosives he had made into the basement where all the ale was kept.

"Dwarfen ale?" The Dwarf hunter muttered as glanced over at a barrel with the words on it's side and a Alliance lion symbol on it, no doubt these barrels were taking in a raid on whichever place it was.

"Well they might have been a bunch of scuners," he said looking down at his wolf companion. "But I'd have to admit that they did have good taste."

By now, Goilir had finished with wiring up the explosives all around the room.

"_Now just to get everyone else to get the hell out of here," _he thought. _"Once I get them out, I'll let this place can go off." _He then ran out of the basement to find his companions. Running up the stairs, he was surprised to run into Kogan, who for some reason looked deflated so to speak.

"Kogan? What's happened?" Asked the hunter.

Kogan looked at him sorely. "It's Brale…he's dead."

Goilir sighed sadly and utter a small Dwarfen prey of some sort. Strange how he barely knew the guy when starting on this mission but by now felt pity for the human priest. "Let's get the rest and get out of here." No words were needed to encourage the Dwarf warrior to go on. And so they did.

**XXX**

Right above them, Raer had taken chase on Sibnick. The poor Goblin original idea of trying to find a save way out had in fairness not gone to plan. And now his luck had completely ran out when he found himself at a dead end with only a big drop down in the courtyard below, of course the stupid Goblin was in no mood to jump down in case he loosed any of his money. Big mistake.

"Bad sense of direction you have that, Goblin," chuckled Raer sarcastically.

"L-Look please!" Begged Sibnick as he got on his knees to the Gnome warlock. "W-What will my kids think?"

"Someone with an attitude like that makes me think that you don't have any kids," Raer remarked.

"I might have someday though…"

"Fat chance."

Before Sibnick knew it, he was blasted back by a large fire blast from Raer, loosing his sack of gold in the process. "My babies!" He cried out stupidly reaching out for the sack as he lay there.

"Oh, so _those _are your kids then?" Chuckled Raer as he fired another fire blast at the pathetic Goblin. Just as the fireball approached Sibnick, he managed to roll over just at the right moment before the fireball hit three barrels filled with ale (they were there for the guards for refreshments for Jirus' planned hanging,) which all burst into flames.

The blast itself caused Raer to be thrown back and Sibnick dangerously closed to the edge of the room that had the hole in the wall that led down into the courtyard below. Whatever the Horde had used to build this Keep was now starting to catch the fire quickly and only about half an hour from now may reduce the Keep to the ground.

Once Raer brought himself up he was surprised to feel a punch to his face. So it seems that Sibnick was not all weak after all, things could look interesting. From this, a fistfight took place. Raer was not the best and close combat like this, but this Goblin seemed fairly good at it strangely.

It was a bloody fight that happened that result one another falling to the floor at times which as they got closer to the small hole in the wall, they were fighting for who would push who down below. Another factor was why Raer couldn't use anymore mana tricks was that…well, he was all out of mana. This was proven harder than he first thought.

**XXX **

Sparks were literally flying from their weapons as the crashed together at times. No matter how damaged each other's armour was, they were kept fighting to the death no matter what. Nedia lay there completed broken almost as she could only watch the Gnome and the Orc fight each other. To many, the thought of a Gnome taking on a large powerful Orc would be deemed too far fetched by many, thought this was actually happening right now.

With an almighty swipe from his axe, Jirus was knocked back to the other side of the room, which in the process, completely cut up Spinesnapper in half. "Not the bloody pet!" Jirus moaned as he saw what happened.

Trying to reach out for his sword, Harg's steal toe boot crushed down onto Jirus hand. "You've played around with your sword for the last time, death knight."

Jirus was completely drained from using any runic powers, and with Nedia nearly out for the count, all hope seemed to be lost…or so Jirus thought. The Night elf huntress reached out for her bow and an arrow.

Harg's scared-ridden face looked down at the defeated Gnome. "Had your girlfriend and your pathetic friends hadn't burst into this Keep your death would have been quick and painless for that hanging but now that you lot have really pissed me off, I'm going to finish her. Nice…and slow."

Jirus glanced to see Nedia, still on the ground, raising the bow and arrow aiming at Harg's back. "That Night elf and I," Continued the Orc general, "we're going to have a hell of a time."

And Harg lowered down his mighty axe down at Jirus to finish him off. Then Harg screamed loudly, causing him to drop his axe on the poor Gnome. Nedia had fired the shot, though Harg still seemed dangerous when he turned round to face Nedia. "Alliance scum!" He roared.

Jirus, seeing his opportunity, grabbed over his sword and sliced off the Orc's right leg off at Harg's lower part. Harg let out an even larger scream of pain that seemed to echo all over Kalimdor. Dark red Blood (though almost black it seemed due to it being a dimly lit room) poured out onto the floor and Harg fell to the fall on his right side, clutching his now halved leg. Weakly getting up, Jirus stood over the Orc with a look of death written all over his face.

"How low have the mighty fallen?" Joked Jirus as he readied his blade to strike into Harg. "Kill by a Gnome, what a laugh." And with a strike of pure hatred for the Orc, the sword went right through the Orc's face causing even more blood to squirt all over the room like a fountain almost.

The Death Knight took one look at the Orc before spiting on the corpse. To Nedia, as Jirus turned to look at her, he looked like a strange murderer of some sort with all the blood of Harg all over him. Jirus deadly look faded when he looked at her, in its place being a small smile. "You ok?" He asked as he knelt down to examine her.

Nedia could only feel herself fill up with joy at Jirus' great deed. "Well, sort of but—"

"Let's get out of here." Jirus interrupted as he helped her up, "Mission complete."

**XXX**

Kogan and Goilir had hurriedly ran up a set of stairs to find Raer, which led them _right _into the fire that by now had nearly consumed this part of the base. Running up the stairs and straight into a room in front of them, there was Raer and Sibnick still fighting it out. The two Dwarfs worried that if Raer took at least a step back then his clothed robes would catch fire.

"Must we have to do _everything_ right," Goilir shuddered as he brought out he gave out a hand signal for his pet wolf to attack the Goblin.

At first sight of the charging wolf, the Goblin panicked and turned round and jump through the small gap in the wall, without the sack full of money that is, down fall downward below. The three group members all expected at least a thud of some sort, but never a splash of water.

Wondering what the noise was, they looked through the large hall and saw to their own amazement to see the Goblin lying in a large barrel filled with water, looking up at them with a furious expression.

The Dwarf hunter then fiddled around with something in his bag, bringing out a dented looking electric remote. When Sibnick saw the remote falling down into the barrel of water he was in, he desperately tried to climb out, but all luck for him would all run out for him at this point…forever.

The remote fell in and bolts of electricity went all round Sibnick as he screamed out in great pain. He started to droop down deeper and deeper into the barrel as he got weaker, before he finally died from this attack.

"Shocking," Raer remarked as a little pun on Sibnick's death.

"Never mind that!" Kogan snapped as he saw the flames now blocking the doorway and their only way out. "We're going to have to jump through that gap to get out."

"Look!" said Goilir pointed through the gap. The gang saw Jirus and Nedia limping along, almost like contenders in a three-legged race, into the courtyard. "They made it! Let's go, this place will blow!"

First Raer and Kogan jumped down and landed on a pile of bodies to cushion their fall, while Goilir grabbed the sack of gold before joining them down. Jirus and Nedia did seem surprise at their strange meeting with the rest of them.

"Guys, those explosives are under that building, it's gonna go!" Goilir panted as he took a run towards the main gate. The rest couldn't say anything else as the motley gang followed on, though something was not right with Jirus.

His battle with Harg had pushed him to his limits and his stumpy body couldn't handle much more. Even as they ran out of the Keep and back into the woodland scenery of Ashenvale, Jirus was slowing down to close to the Keep that would explode at anytime now.

"Jirus!" Called Nedia as she turned to look at him. "Run!" Strangely, everything seemed to go in slow motion. Then he could feel and hear a powerful explosion behind him that was so powerful (what had Goilir put into those explosives?) that Jirus was completely blown off his feet and launched forwards, being hit from large pieces of the great former wall hitting him. Knocking him unconscious from a powerful hit.

Jirus did feel that, before he blacked out, that he had done his duty for the Alliance, for his guild, for his friends…but still more for her. Nedia.

It was over.

**XXX**

It was black. He couldn't feel anything, was he dead? Then he felt life coming back into his arms, then his legs and then his thoughts. He was not dead, but what?

His eyes began to open again, very slowly and in a flickery manner. The first thing that he knew was that he was in a room. Slowly sitting up, he found himself in an Inn room with him on one of the single beds. Looking down, bandages seemed to criss-cross over his upper torso, though they didn't completely covered his body. He couldn't tell how long he must have been here for or where he was for that matter.

Looking to his left, his heart went up into his throat. It Nedia sitting up his bedside, though dressed lightly in light leather and without any shoulder pads. "Nedia?" He gasped. "W-Where I'm I?"

"You're safe now," Nedia said calmly rubbing the top of his head lightly. "Your in Rachet and have been here for about a week. We brought you here after you were knocked out."

"What about the Horde?" Asked Jirus again trying to sit up, he had so many questions to ask her.

The Night elf huntress sighed placing her hands on her lap. "After the base exploded, all Horde forces were pushed back, though I don't think they're going to give up that easily over the land." She looked away thinking about those doubts.

The moment was perfect, just him and her. He just _had _to tell her how he felt for her. No stopping him now. "Nedia…" he began looking directly in her clear reflected eyes. "I have to tell you something…"

Nedia nodded, unknown to Jirus, she **knew** what he was trying to say.

"Since we first were brought together to do this crazy mission, I couldn't stop thinking about you for some reason. You're an amazing woman, Nedia." Jirus turned his gaze away from her looking into blank space. "I did think that I had something for you, but you saved my life, showing how weak I was to you."

Nedia seemed puzzled at the death knight of what he was saying. "You deserve a strong able person for yourself," Jirus continued. "And for that, I can't be with you."

The Night elf huntress gasped. "What you saying?"

"I'm not good enough for you," he turned to look at her again. "I didn't save your life to make us equal at least." Jirus felt too numb to even cry in front of her.

Nedia thought briefly for a moment about Jirus' words, then smiled cupping his check with her hand. "You did save my life," she spoke calmly. "_You_ saved me from that Orc, remember? So that does make us equal."

Jirus couldn't believe what he was hearing, was she accepting him? "I'm not sure Nedia," the Gnome shook his head. "I'm a big mess, totally over the hill so to speak. But are true about what you said?"

Nedia nodded, still with that smile on her face.

"…If anyone is ever going to make me happy in my sad strange life, then it only going to be you," Jirus continued. "Of course many will find us strange together, but maybe we can make it all work out though…"

Slowly, Nedia's face closed the gap between them, with Jirus doing to the same on his side. For Nedia, this would be her first kiss oddly enough. The kiss was very tender and nothing too much. Jirus may of never felt how soft her lips were due to him being a death knight, but what he felt though inside him with that kiss seemed to tell him that she was worth everything.

Pulling their lips away from each other, they leaned their foreheads on each other for a moment before starting another kiss. The first kiss they had mainly been them accepting their love for each other; this kiss was a bit more passionate, keeping their lips on each other for quite sometime. Everything seemed so silent around them and blissful around them.

So blissful they were, that they didn't hear the door open with Kogan, Raer and Goilir walking into the room. "Hey Dad how are you-?" They gasped at what they saw.

The only thing maybe more terrifying to them was if Deathwing had been Jirus' secret pet. Kogan for once was speechless, Goilir was flat on his ass and Raer…well, had a triumphed grin on his lips.

"Alright!" He cheered, "Nedia is going to become my new mother-in-law!"

When they heard this, the new couple quickly pulled away to stare at the shocked pair. Strangely though, everything all turned out fine after that, which is until Raer the next week cheered throughout the guild building in Stormwind about his Dad finding new love. But many more stories have yet to be told.

* * *

**Yay! They kissed, now go away...wait, no stay, there is one more part to this, the epilogue! To be honest, I'm going to miss the story of mine once the next chapter goes up, strange how something you write starts growing on you now doesn't it? Hold on for one last chapter, I'll be back. **


	8. Epilogue

**Wow...I done it. I bloody finished a story! Really, all of this without writers block, that really is something, isn't it? So now we come to the end of the story now, sad isn't it? Of all the chapters, this one is pretty sloppy due to me woking on this at night, so I might come back at some point to clean it up and what not. Compared to the last chapter, this was a summer's breeze to write and more easy to do since I had all the ideas of what would happen with the characters. Still let's see what happened to our characters...**

* * *

**Part 8 **

**Epilogue **

The gang of heroes made their triumphed return back to Stormwind some days later. While they were given a heroes welcome, they were all surprised to see the once heartless Jirus Frizzcrackle find himself a love interest, though quite a strange love interest to say the least. Nevertheless, Jirus and Nedia began their days as a young new couple heading out on many smaller quests around Azeroth and such that they could handle together. For each of their friends after which, all had different adventures.

Goilir vowed that, after being slagged of by many due to his slightly dangerous work, he would improve on it and make them eat their words. He was reunited with his Draenai lover, Vollane, which she became the unfortunate test subject for many of Goilir's inventions, though thankfully, she escaped from them unharmed.

With the case with Raer…

The stupid Gnome warlock has not changed one bit since the Ashenvale caper. With the reward of money he was rewarded, he used all up at a betting game, much to all his friends' dismay. Nevertheless, he is always up to something hanging out with strange and wild woman, then again that was all typical Raer.

Kogan thought he was the king of the world when the guild offered him the rank of being up in the higher ranks of the guild. His promotion however…well, let's just says that Raer was behind some of the little tricks he pulled on Kogan…

And with Jirus and Nedia, the two of them bought a small cottage near the cost in the Arathi Highlands, a perfect spot for a peaceful life to have. A year later, something that everyone thought that Jirus would never do actually did do…he ask Nedia's hand in marriage.

Before hand asking the girlfriend to marry him, Jirus had to head to track down Nedia's mother in Teledrassil. It is always hard for the guy to ask for the parent's permission to ask for the marriage of the daughter, and it would be even harder for Jirus giving the fact how Night elves would be stuck up at these things, though he was surprised at the outcome of how things turned out.

Nedia's mother was just like Nedia, expect that she had violet hair rather than Nedia's blue hair and was just as kind as her daughter, no doubt Nedia must of receive her sort of personality from her mother. Nedia's mother then told Jirus that Nedia's farther would've been so proud of the fact that his daughter had found the man for herself, even if it was a Gnome.

After the wedding, the two of them didn't settle down as such as many would think, but still went on various trips and adventures, causing many married folk in the guild to find them rather odd, though not being of the same race for once. When Jirus married Nedia, he only hoped that he would have a quiet life with her and no children, though he almost had a heart attack (sort of if you know that Jirus has no living parts with him as a death knight) when Nedia said to him that she was expecting a child.

Jirus couldn't stop worrying of what a crossbreed child would look like; he hadn't seen one to know what it would look like. The time Nedia went into labour with the baby, Jirus like all expected fathers wouldn't stop asking the Dwarf shaman, who was assisting the mid-wife, to have a glimpse to make sure his wife was doing alright. Though when he saw the baby for the first time when little baby girl called Alise was born on a spring evening, he couldn't be so happy to know how beautiful the half elf half gnome baby looked liked.

For many who had never seen a crossbreed gnome/elf looked like, their appearance was rather strange. The Little girl more elf than Gnome though a few changes. She had the same colour of purple skin from her mother and had her Night elf face markings though her skin had a slight tinge of peach skin from her farther. She had her father's brown hair and blue death knight eyes; when she grew up eventually, she only stood about an inch shorter than all Night elves, not to mention that her long ears were shorter but still had their longish length. The girl herself eventually went on many adventures herself when she reached adulthood becoming a rogue, just like her farther before he became a death knight.

Although the odd couple was all at ease with each other with the birth of their little girl, they still had many adventures and many more stories. One story being just shortly after they became a couple after the Ashenvale trip, they were sent of to help track down Kogan after he had gone missing when helping out in Gilneas against the Worgen threat, this story, has yet to be told…

Jirus though had never really believed in happy endings, though now after meeting Nedia, he could now start believing in happy beginnings.

**The End **

**

* * *

I know it was short, but really that is all you need know. However, the stories of them is not quite over yet! My friend is busy working on his first WoW fanfic about Kogan and what happened to him, which I hope will be put up here on fairly soon as it is currently on DA at the moment. Until next time, a fond fairway.**


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